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Copyright N° 

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THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR: 



"Help from the Hills" 
1 Sparks from a Parson's Anvil" 



The /Aan 
Outside the Church 

and Other Sermons 

By 

H. P. Almon Abbott 
a. a., d.d) 



Ailwaukec 
The Young Churchman Co. 
1917 



copyright by 
The Young Churchman Co. 
1917 



/ 

OCT 22 1917 



©CU477150 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword . . . vii 

A Word to the Man Outside the Church . . 1 

The Wells of Life 10 

Nevertheless 18 

Elisha Modernized 26 

The National Sinner 35 

A Scorned Man t 45 

The Good Samaritan 55 

The Cities of Kefuge 64 

The Grace of Courage 77 

The Opened Books 88 

A Pregnant Saying . 96 

The Prodigal Son . ^ 105 

The Pilgrim Fathers — A Patriotic Sermon . . 117 

George Washington — A Patriotic Sermon . . 127 

Unusual Methods . . % , 137 

Simon and Simon — An Ordination Sermon . . 145 
Like Master Like Disciple — An Ordination Ser- 
mon 154 

The Consequences of Sin 162 

First Things First 171 

Judas Iscariot 187 

Stewardship 193 

The Desire to See Jesus 205 

Sticking To It 212 



DEDICATION. 



This Little Book is Dedicated 

By an Ever Grateful "Son in the Faith" 

To the Fragrant Memory of 

JOHN PHILIP DuMOULIN, D.D., D.C.L., 
Late Bishop of Niagara, Canada. 

an eloquent preacher of righteousness, 
a faithful shepherd of the sheep committed to his charge, 
and a true servant of jesus christ, without fear of 
human censure or regard for earthly praise. 



FOREWORD 



HP HE accompanying Sermons deal with the practical- 
* ities of the Christian Life. Their only virtue — if 
virtue they possess — lies in their simplicity, and in the 
patent fact that they are devoid of doctrinal definition. 

The Discourses are addressed to the average person 
who sits but lightly in the pew, and to the stimulation 
of the over-worked Preacher who would relate his 
weekly message to the intelligence of the business- 
wracked worshipper who is physically incapable of 
extraordinary mental effort on "the one day's rest in 
seven". 

It is hoped that the obvious imperfections of the 
following pages will be overlooked in the earnest desire 
of the author that they may minister, under God, to 
the spiritual edification of the Reader. 

Almon Abbott. 

Trinity Cathedral, Cleveland, Ohio. 



A WORD TO THE MAN OUTSIDE 
THE CHURCH 



THE average man, the man with whom one has 
dealings in society and in business, is not 
interested in the Church. He has some hard things 
to say about Organized Christianity. He stands 
avowedly, and somewhat self-complacently, outside 
the Church — to the relative impotency of the 
Church, and to the emasculation of his own reli- 
gious influence. 

The Man Outside the Church has many things 
to say. He is quite frank about the reasons which 
prevent his joining the Church, and he is ready at 
any time to justify his attitude to all enquirers. 
Let us enumerate a few of his statements. 

(1) "A man may be a Christian without joint- 
ing the Church/' This is, of course, an obvious 
thing to say, and it is more or less true. One may 
be a Christian of Sorts outside the Church, one 
may perform many Christ-like deeds; but one 
cannot be the best kind of Christian outside the 
Church. We are living upon the benefits of dif- 



2 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



fused Christianity. The atmosphere of our thought, 
individual, domestic, social, and governmental, is 
a Christianized atmosphere ; but atmospheric Chris- 
tianity is not enough. We need a touch of definite- 
ness in all things, and it is hardly honest to accept 
benefits and yet to make no personal acknowledg- 
ment of the source from whence the benefits flow. 

It is possible for me to be a Free Mason of 
Sorts by living upon the benefits of diffused Free 
Masonry. I can be charitable, self-sacrificingly 
charitable, toward all men, and captious toward 
none. But to be a Free Mason in the fullest sense 
of that much-abused term I must be initiated into 
the mysteries of Free Masonry, and place myself 
in living touch with the channels of its life. So to 
be a Christian in utmost fact I must ally myself 
with The Body of Believers, with The Society of 
Christians; think as they think and know as they 
know; and be corporately strengthened by associa- 
tion with like minded Enthusiasts. 

Let us look at it from another angle. ]STo man 
would suggest the advisability of closing down all 
the Houses of Worship in this and in all lands. He 
admits, any man admits, that with all their imper- 
fections the Churches of Christendom are serving 
to keep alive Christianity in the hearts and minds 
and consciences of men. Truth, Christian and 
otherwise, as a matter of philosophy and observa- 
tion, may only be perpetuated through organization, 



THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 3 



and to close all the Homes of God in the Christian 
world would ultimately end in the perversion, if 
not in the disruption, of the Christian Evangel. Is 
it logical, then, to disassociate oneself from that 
which is confessedly essential to the maintenance 
of Christianity ? 

(2) Men say, and this is wrapt up with the 
foregoing, "that they are frightened off by the 
Hypocrites in the Church/' They are assured of 
the fact that they are not hypocritical themselves, 
and they would be careful of the company which 
they keep ! Now let us admit, for the facts in the 
case demand such admission, that there are hypo- 
crites in the Church; that there are many hypo- 
crites, clerical and lay, and that there always have 
been, and that there always will be. Human nature 
is human nature, and the Christian Ideal is a high 
ideal, and we are told on divine authority that the 
"wheat and the tares shall grow together until the 
harvest." But let us also remember and admit — 
the facts in the case demand such remembrance and 
admission — that there are Saints in the Church, 
Saints, clerical and lay, and many of them; that 
there always have been, and that there always will 
be. This self-evident truth is apt to be lost sight 
of by the Man Outside the Church. I have met 
more good people — and from intimate experience 
of the inner workings of organized Christianity 
my testimony counts for something — people who 



4 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



estimated earthly things as dross that they might 
eventually be found in the likeness of Christ Jesus 
their Lord, inside the Church than I have discov- 
ered outside the Church. This is to be expected, 
and an innumerable company of men bear witness 
to the fact that the expectation is abundantly justi- 
fied. But this objection to joining the Church, 
that there are so many hypocrites within the 
Church, is based upon a fundamental misconcep- 
tion. The Church is not a Society for Saints; it 
is a Society for Sinners who desire, gradually, very 
gradually, to become Saints. It is a world within 
the world; an association of those who are not as 
good as they ought to be, and well might become, 
and who desire to place themselves in the most 
propitious environment for the production of 
righteous character. In the Church there are those 
who are at the very beginning of their improve- 
ment ; men and women who are fighting with wild 
beasts at Ephesus; and who are constantly, or at 
least intermittently, "bested" in the perpetuated 
warfare of the flesh against the spirit. The aver- 
age man inside the Church "counts not himself to 
have apprehended, he does not esteem himself as 
one who has already attained, either were already 
perfect". Morning and evening he confesses him- 
self to be "a miserable sinner" and "to have done 
the things that he ought not to have done", and "to 
have left undone the things that he ought to have 



THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



5 



done". Saints do not speak in that language. 
When a man joins the Church he does not shout 
from the house tops, "I am holier than thou" ; he 
says in effect, "I need all the help that I can get ; 
so I am entering the Hot House of Christian 
growth." 

Surely, then, to this degree and extent Hypoc- 
risy within the Church may be forgiven — or, if not 
forgiven, understood. But the nature of the case 
we presume Hypocrisy, and our presumption is 
not disappointed ! Whenever a man puts forward 
this time-worn objection I always feel like saying, 
and, as a matter of fact, I sometimes do, "Come 
along, O Virtuous Brother, and make one hypocrite 
the more !" 

But, there is more to be said in this connection. 
It is not the army that should obsess our conscious- 
ness. It is the Cause for which the army fights. 
There is a Book which all should read. The title 
is Kitchener s Mob. Kitchener's Mob was a mob 
in truth. Laborers, mechanics, artisans, clerks, 
shop-keepers, merchants, and professional men sud- 
denly called upon to enter the field of military duty 
fresh from the spade, the machine, the desk, the 
counter, the office, and the study. A disorderly 
mob ; a mob with little, if any, idea of discipline ; 
an aggregation of men to whom the profession of 
arms was a new thing in the world. What would 
you have thought of the patriot who looked at such 



6 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



a collection of incompetents and said, "Well, Eng- 
land is hard pressed : but I refuse to associate my- 
self with such an array of humanity as that. It is 
not an army, but a rabble, and an ill-assorted rabble, 
too. My self-respect forbids enlistment." Surely, 
you would say, "Fastidiousness in a coward is not 
becoming !" The cause was, and in the same con- 
nection still is, everything. The question was, and 
the question still is, "what is the army fighting 
for? If the cause is just, to join the army is a 
'man's job', and the greater the number of inca- 
pables in the ranks the greater the need of capables 
such as I." The cause for which the Church fights 
is the Cause of Jesus Christ. There is ever the 
mob within the Church ; ever the raw recruits ; ever 
the enlisting of new and inexperienced soldiers 
beneath the Banner of the Cross; but "we fight 
against Principalities and Powers, against the rul- 
ers of the darkness of this world". 

(3) Men say, "Granted that I ought to link up 
with the Church, I hesitate to do so because there 
are so many different Denominations of Christians 
that I do not know which Denomination to join/' 
That is a specious excuse, but the fact remains 
that it is specious, and an excuse. There is one 
army; but there are many regiments. How does 
that look ? The denominations are all fighting for a 
new Heaven and a new Earth wherein dwelleth 
righteousness ; they are all working, in season and 



THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 7 



out of season, for the same triumphant achievement 
- — that the Kingdoms of this world may become the 
Kingdom of Our Lord and of His Christ. What- 
ever the battle cries ; whatever the flags unfurled ; 
whatever the confused din of the conflict ; the army, 
numerous as are the battalions and regiments and 
brigades, is engaged in the same offensive. It is 
storming the citadels of Sin and Satan and death. 

Beneath all uniforms, and diversified terms of 
enrollment, and the apparent smartness or dowdi- 
ness of the rank and file in this department and in 
that ; far below all catch words, and doctrinal for- 
mulae, and external differentiations, the army is 
one, and it were better to belong to any corps than 
to stand outside and see the hosts sweep by. As 
Rupert Brooke said, "Well; if Armageddon is on 
I suppose it is a man's place to be there." The 
Spiritual Armageddon, speaking untechnically, is 
ever on, and woe to the man who sidesteps his "call 
to the colors". 



Such, then, are some of the things that the man 
outside the Church says about the wisdom, or 
advisability, of coming inside the Church. He 
tabooes Organized Christianity because in his 
opinion it is possible to be a Christian and not 
join the Church; because there are so many hypo- 
crites in the Church; and because the Denomina- 



8 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



tions of Christians are so numerous that it is 
difficult to select one denomination in preference 
to another. 

* # * 

Now, why have I taken the trouble to say all 
this; and wherein lies the pertinency of remarks 
such as these ? 

My motive is this : I want to persuade those of 
you who have been resting upon this pile of plaus- 
ibilities to reopen the whole question, and to con- 
scientiously determine whether or no you have 
given the matter sufficient consideration. 

The fight is on ; the fight is on in living earnest, 
and we who are affiliated with the Church, and 
with the work of the Church, realize that we can- 
not, humanly speaking, carry the warfare far into 
the enemy's country and achieve the ultimate vic- 
tory without your devoted assistance ; without the 
professed and actualized enthusiasm and coopera- 
tion of all those who account Jesus Christ the 
Friend above all other friends. Summing up our 
prospects we see that the man outside the Church is 
so often the man whom we need inside the Church ; 
and that the recruits whom we crave are the whole- 
souled, kingly-qualitied men who are, so far as 
the Church is concerned, "passing by on the other 
side". We call to you, and endeavor to attract your 
attention, my brothers, as you "pass by" across the 



THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 9 



street from us, and tell you that our God-Blessed 
and Christ-Generaled Army is weak without you, 
and that we shall never muster our full strength 
until you have thrown in your lot with us, and have 
begun to "do us good". 



THE WELLS OF LIFE * 



Genesis 26: 20-23. Esek, Sitnah, Rehoboth, Sheba. 

fT^HESE are the names of the wells of Isaac in 
X the valley of Gerar. Our subject to-day is 
well-digging. 

It is the middle of winter. Isaac and his 
companions are in a place through which the sum- 
mer torrents poured. The springs have all dried 
up, the musical brooks have sung themselves to 
sleep, and there is a scarcity of water. The Is- 
raelites are athirst, and in self-defence they set 
to work to remedy the difficulty. They dig deep 
down into the ground, and find that for which 
they are in search, drink for their parched throats 
and fevered lips. Hardly, however, have they be- 
gun to quench their thirst when the well is snatched 
away from them by roaming hordes of Philistines 
who are in search of water, too. These men with 
the insolence of superior force assert "the water 
is ours". And Isaac, the meek and gentle son of 
Abraham, called the well Esek, meaning strife. 



* This sermon is based upon a study by Dr. Joseph Parker. 



THE WELLS OF LIFE 



11 



An old story, my friends, or rather the ancient 
preface to an oft-repeated tale; for it sounds 
strangely familiar, and it has a smell of immortal- 
ity about it. We are all well-diggers. Water is 
sometimes woefully scarce in life, and we are thirsty 
creatures by nature and education. We have all 
digged this first well of Isaac ; the well Esek, strife. 
We start out in our business or profession, we em- 
bark upon a social career, and we strike water; 
a refreshing stream of recognition and success. 
Then, behold, the Philistines have come along, the 
greedy, thirsty, big-mouthed Philistines, and we 
lose what we had gained. 

If men and women find water they will not be 
left alone; be quite sure of that; they must pay 
the penalty of their ingenuity. In a stupid world 
individual cleverness will not be tolerated for a 
moment. If Isaac's men had discovered nothing 
but hard rock the inhabitants of Gerar would never 
have spoken to them, nor disputed their occupa- 
tion ; they could have drunken to their thirsts' full 
content. It is what we find that excites the sur- 
prise and the cupidity of those who are not in 
sympathy with us. If you plunge your hand into 
the tempestuous wind and pluck nothing out of it 
save air your unkindest neighbor will not molest 
you ; he will let you rest in peace ; whilst a smile 
of beatific benevolence will illumine his weather- 
furrowed face. But if you bring back news of wells 



12 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



and mines and fruit trees and plentiful harvests; 
if the paean of victory and the chant of praise is 
sounding in your ears, then beware. You will be 
blackguarded for your popularity; your motives 
will be maligned, and a river of innuendoes will 
flow through the ranks of your contemporaries. If 
you take this view of life it will help you to equa- 
nimity, and serve to bolster up your tottering 
strength and self-respect. Success is unpopular in 
exact ratio to the prevalence of failure, and the 
over plus of mediocrity. Envy, malice, and all 
uncharitableness are a vindication of the superior 
quantity and quality of water in your well. You 
have achieved Esek> strife. 



And now what did Isaac do? He said, "let 
us pass on and find another well." He was a phi- 
losopher, was Isaac. It is a pity that the higher 
critics are doing away with such a shining pattern 
for every age. He wasted no time over useless 
haggling ; he realized that discretion was the better 
part of valor. And so his workmen, no doubt 
with many a muttered oath, for workmen are not 
overfond of work, unlocked their bags of tools, and 
set to digging once more. Again their labors were 
rewarded with success, and the sparkling water 
welled up from its hidden recesses. We may 
imagine the laughter and the joyous repartee as 



THE WELLS OF LIFE 



13 



they cast themselves down in fatigued abandon- 
ment, and quaffed the rippling cup. Their satis- 
faction, however, was soon disturbed, and they 
sprang to their feet in terrified affright as the well- 
known cries and imprecations of the malevolent 
Philistines smote upon their ears. History re- 
peats itself, and this oasis even as the former is 
wrested from their grasp. And Isaac called the 
name of that well Sitnah, meaning hatred. 

So is it ever. After Esek we have gone ahead 
and found water once more. Success with its en- 
folding mantle has after months or years enwrapped 
us as in days of yore. It is doubly precious because 
we have had the harrowing contrast. But alas our 
ecstasy is short-lived. One success in the eyes of the 
world may be forgotten if not forgiven, but two suc- 
cesses are unpardonable. At the first offence there 
may be mere strife, contention of a worthy sort; 
at the second offence there is the sinister frown, 
the detestation, the overcharging hatred. To such 
a pass, as experience proves, is human feeling 
driven by the sight of another's repeated success. 

Are you the Philistine ; is envy your besetting 
sin? Let us beware of it. It hinders prayer, it 
befogs heaven, it dries up the fountain of charity 
in our hearts, and turns the crystal water into 
poison. It takes the angel out of us, it slays our 
very soul, it chokes the sweet song in our throats, 
and turns the milk of human kindness into gall and 



14 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



bitterness. It may seem to be expending itself 
upon the outward object, but in reality it is ruining 
the life of the envious one. It's disaster is sub- 
jective. We may pity Isaac, but if we are long 
sighted enough our utmost compassion will go out 
to the envious Philistines. 



Poor Isaac, we say, his long suffering patience 
must have been sorely tried. What was his be- 
havior upon the occasion of this second rebuff? 
Why, Isaac had a sweet nature, what we call a 
good-tempered disposition, he was not soured as 
most of us would have been. He did not know 
how to be sulky; he refused to woo himself into 
self-congratulatory slumber by the happy pessimism 
of adverse circumstances. "He removed from 
thence and digged another well." Surely having 
digged two wells, and having been driven away 
from both of them, he had some cause for a pouting 
of the lips, a hanging of the head, and a groaning 
out of bitter words. But Isaac's motto was ex- 
celsior. "He removed from thence and digged 
another well." And for that the Philistines strove 
not, and he called the name of it Rehoboth. That 
is room; a place to stand in. 

After Esek, and Sitnah the sons of men who 
have will power and determination start in business 
once more, hang up the sign of their profession 



THE WELLS OF LIFE 



15 



where all may see, and, nothing daunted, fight the 
ceaseless battle of their ambition. It takes a man 
who is a man, a woman who is a woman, to do this. 
To dig one well is weary work, but to dig three 
wells is almost superhuman. There are those, 
however, who along with Isaac have done this thing. 
This is the secret of fame ; this is the safeguard of 
enduring success. 

Rehoboth, that is the well that we want above 
all other wells. That is the water which if we 
drink of it will never permit us to thirst again. 
Esek and Sitnah were not our rightful wells ; we 
were intended for greater things. The world is 
bigger than any part of it, the universe is larger 
than any section of its crust ; if we are driven away 
from this place, or that place, we may find a better 
place to dig a well. That is the way to wear out 
an enemy; that is the way to conquer an envious 
population. Hatred and strife have their sur- 
renders. The Philistine herdsmen are not peri- 
patetic for the space of a thousand miles. Reho- 
both, room, an area where we can fling out our 
arms, and stand on our head, and kick our heels 
together, if we will. There is a place for every- 
thing, and everything in its place ; there is a round 
hole for every round peg. There is, as Isaac and 
Herbert Spencer alike assert, a correspondence with 
environment, a position which calls out our best 
power, and unloosens our dormant possibilities. 



16 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



Some people have a long and tiresome search for 
Eehoboth; but when they find it you would not 
know them for the same individuals — life has be- 
gun, hope is consummated, and work is play. This 
is the will of God for you and me; our beautiful 
home, our happy family, our prosperous business, 
our joying Christianity. When this well is digged 
it is only after strife and hatred, but our endur- 
ance of these conditions has vindicated our right 
to live, and even acrimonious Philistia has a word 
of praise. She remembereth no more the wells of 
Sitnah and Esek for joy that a man is born into 
the world. 



After this Isaac digs another well ; he has the 
habit, and good habits are as strong as bad. "And 
Isaac's servants came and told him that they had 
found water, and he called it Sheba". That is 
an oath ; a blessing settled forever. Noble Isaac, 
he knew not only how to work, but how to praise. 
He was thankful as well as energetic. When he 
had reached the satisfaction of his dreams he was 
grateful to God ; he lifted his hands toward heaven, 
and offered himself and his success as an evening's 
sacrifice. 

This last well is a well that few people dig. 
Their attitude is, "the might of mine own right 
arm hath gotten me this victory." But, unless 
we would be ingrates, after Eehoboth we must dig 



THE WELLS OF LIFE 



17 



another well ; a covenant betwixt ns and God. We 
must join the House of Aaron, and say, "His 
mercy endureth forever." 

Such, then, is the normal course of human life. 
Strife, hatred, a place to live in, and a striking 
of the hands together in holy covenant. Happy 
indeed is the consummation; worth, well worth, 
the buffeting. 

It was all exemplified in Jesus Christ, the 
second Isaac. He came to His own and His own 
received Him not, Esek. He came again and He 
was despised and rejected of men, Sitnah. He 
came again and He is to-day finding room within 
the hearts of men, Rehoboth. He is coming again 
and He will realize the oath, the covenant, that He 
shall have the heathen for His inheritance, and 
the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession, 
Sheba. ± 

Wells — I like the word. It is full of music. 
Wells, "with joy shall ye draw water out of the 
wells of salvation." "Whosoever shall drink of 
the water that I shall give him shall never thirst ; 
but the water that I shall give him shall be in him 
a well of water springing up into eternal life." 

"Ho, everyone that thirst eth, come ye to the 
waters." Whosoever will may come. The invita- 
tion is ours. We are not satisfied with earthly 
waters, for, our souls are athirst for the living God. 



NEVERTHELESS 



St. Luke 5:4-5. "Master, we have toiled all the night, 
and have taken nothing ; nevertheless, at Thy 
word I will let down the net." 

NEVEETHELESS— it is the speech of moral 
heroism; it is the language of sovereign con- 
quest. It is the word which has initiated great 
reforms, and consummated mighty achievements. 
Nothing great and good has ever been formulated, 
and achieved without it. "We have toiled all the 
night, and have taken nothing— Nevertheless/' It 
was the determination to wring success out of de- 
feat, and to make the night of failure minister to 
the dawn of hopeful endeavor. 

The Sea of Galilee had refused to unburden 
its wealth of riches. The fishermen, who through 
years of experience knew its waters from shore to 
shore, had cast their nets from sundown to sunrise 
in the most likely places, places where heretofore 
the fish were wont to congregate, and emptiness, 
not fulness, had crowned their repeated efforts. 



NEVERTHELESS 



19 



"They had toiled all the night, and had taken 
nothing." Simon and his companions were tired 
out. There is no toil so arduous as fruitless toil ; 
there is no labor so exacting as labor that brings no 
results. The hardest work of all work is the look- 
ing for work. The fishermen were disgusted, as 
well they might be; hours of netting, of rowing 
their craft from shore to shore, and nothing to 
show for it. They were not amateurs, they were 
professionals, fishing was their livelihood, and 
Peter would go home to his faithful wife and 
expectant children, empty handed. 

In solemn, but ominous silence, they have 
beached their boat, and are washing their nets. 
There is compensate joy in washing the nets when 
they are filled with the scales of a mighty cateh, 
but it is a burdensome affair to wash the nets when 
the meshes are unstained by captive, squirming 
fishes. The fishermen were dispirited, and worked 
in sullen apathy. 

Then upon the shore beside them appears 
Jesus. He says, "Let down your nets for a 
draught." Apparently He is unaware of the re- 
sultless search, and yet, when He speaks, He ever 
speaks to some purpose. Peter, the spokesman, 
makes reply, "Master, we have toiled all the night 
and have taken nothing, Nevertheless at Thy word 
I will let down the net." It is the decisive answer 
of a brave man. He will not let the past over- 



20 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



shadow the future. To-day in its possibilities must 
not be chained to the failure of yesterday. The 
morning must not be the bondslave of the night. 

"Nevertheless — I will." Brave Simon. And 
his courage was crowned with success. Under the 
guidance of Jesus the deeps were made to give 
forth their storehouse, and the directed nets en- 
closed a multitude of fishes, so that they began to 
break. 

And we, like Simon, have toiled all the night, 
and have taken nothing. We have tried and tried 
again, and the issue has been failure. We have 
agonized even unto blood, and the months and 
years that have gone have brought us null and void 
to the verge of the present day. We are sick of 
it all ; wearied unto death. We shall give up try- 
ing, cease from repeated effort, from perpetuated 
heartbreak ; beach our boat, fold up the nets, turn 
our back upon the useless toil, and go home. 

Is not this our attitude in respect of sin — of 
spiritual advancement — of worldly promotion — of 
the approximation of our souls content ? We have 
toiled; Ah God how we have toiled, and it has 
been a toiling through the night, and we are none 
the better but rather the worse, none the richer, 
but rather the poorer, none the happier, but rather 
the sadder. We have taken nothing, nothing. We 
shall give up the striving, cease from laborious 
struggle, take our ease and let the world roll by. 



NEVERTHELESS 



21 



My f riends, the only failure is the armchair at- 
titude. The only despair is the despair of inaction. 
The only damnation is to let what has been be- 
come the overruling tyrant of what is and of what 
is yet to be. Only so may we be a slave ; fettered to 
the galley of the past. 

When are we in the throes of such a hopeless 
condition; when is our failure a failure writ in 
uncials ; when are we cast as drifting derelicts upon 
the shores of uselessness ? 

When we permit the moral disaster of the past 
to determine our future destiny: To toil all the 
night and to take nothing, and to let that experience 
vitiate the opportunities of to-day, is irremediable 
misfortune; it is to bow down to the past, and to 
treat it as a god. It is to be the bondslave, shackled 
and manacled, of a hopeless Siva; the god with a 
hundred hands, each containing a thunderbolt. 

Are you in such a condition ? You have come 
to realize in one of the interludes of existence that 
there is a passion which for years has been work- 
ing devastation in your life. By passion, I do not 
merely mean animal passion; there are passions 
that draw us with silken threads as well as with 
cartropes; with gossamer gause as well as with 
cables ; passions of vanity, or pride, or illicit ambi- 
tion. You have taken issue with the monster, and 
have resolved to oust his influence. You have 
made good resolutions, and, when you made them 



22 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



you meant them. But, you have made little head- 
way against your besetting sin; for, alas, passion 
is imbued with the subtlety of Satan its master. 
Passions come dancing into our lives like kittens. 
We play with them; they play with us. They 
come dancing in and dancing out again. Such 
harmless little kittens; soft and purring to the 
touch; gentle and enticing. But — the time 
goes on, and they come as tigers, and they come 
to stay. 

The keeper at the Zoo tosses a lion cub up into 
the air, and catches it in his arms. Just a cub ; a 
sweet, soft, fluffy cub; up it goes, and down it 
comes. But, the keeper will not do that two years 
hence ; for the cub has grown meanwhile, and is a 
beast with teeth that bite, and claws that pierce, 
and a voice that issues in frightening roar. 

So is it with our passion. It came so softly; 
it danced into our life, and it danced out again. 
It was such a playful passion ; so amenable to rea- 
son; so capable of subjugation at our wish, and 
word of command. But, the passion has grown; 
it has developed with our life; it is a beast to be 
reckoned with ; and we instead of mastering it are 
in a fair way of being mastered by it. It is the 
periodicity of passion which constitutes its thral- 
dom. It comes, and it goes ; it comes, and it goes. 
To-day it has left us; how virtuous we are! Its 
retrospect is loathsome; we trample the recollec- 



NEVERTHELESS 



23 



tion beneath our feet. We are free; arbiters of 
our own destiny; how could we ever have given 
hospitality to the monster ? We make all sorts 
of good resolves. But, here it comes again; its 
periodicity has returned. The passion is upon us 
once more in full and burning force. All our 
fences are broken; our ramparts are destroyed; 
our trenches are occupied; and resolutions fade 
away. The passion conquers, enthralls, intoxi- 
cates, and once more we fall. The periodicity 
of passion; ah, there is its sting, and there its 
perpetuated tyranny over our disaster strewn 
lives. 

Well; you have toiled all the night against 
your passion, and have taken nothing ; you would 
beach the boat, return homeward, bolt the door, 
and sleep the hours away. You permit the moral 
disaster of the past to determine your future 
destiny. This, and this alone, is failure. But, 
even yet there come softening seasons. I have a 
little patch of ground. In the spring time I plant 
tender little saplings. The rain gives them drink ; 
the sun nurtures them with its warming rays; 
they appear above the earth. I tend them carefully, 
I rake and weed. But as the weeks go on my in- 
terest in the saplings diminishes. There is a 
drought. I forget to water them. Poisonous 
growths grow up beside them ; I cease to cull and 
hew; the saplings die. The plot of ground is a 



24 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



patch of death. So, into our lives come softening 
seasons. The new year, when the solemnity of 
passing tin^e overawes us for a while. What seed- 
lings we plant of good resolve ; of resolute determi- 
nation to master the master who masters us. A 
loved one dies; sorrow tills the sterile soil of our 
lives. Its soft touch brings growths to light; 
growths which we had deemed dead in childhood's 
days. But time moves on; sorrow comes to be 
accepted as an accomplished fact, and weeds spring 
up, the drought of inaction paralyzes our resolves, 
and the tender saplings are bent, and withered, 
and withering, die. What does this mean? It 
means that behind us we have a patch of dead 
wood ; a mine of dissipated energy. It is a peril- 
ous thing. We look back; we tried and failed. 
We look ahead, if we try again we are bound 
to fail again. The moral disaster of the past be- 
comes our tyrant, and we permit it to determine 
our future destiny. But, modern Simons that we 
are, what does the Master say % "Launch out into 
the deep — the old deep — and let down your nets 
for a draught." The night is past; the sun is 
risen ; the earth is gilded with a new flooded radi- 
ance; the morn, the new morn, the morn never 
seen before, is come. Away with the defeat of 
yesterday, all hail the privileges of to-day. "Master, 
we have toiled all the night, and have taken 
nothing. Nevertheless, at Thy word I will let 



NEVERTHELESS 



25 



down the net." The defeat of yesterday under 
Christ's manipulation is intended to minister to 
the success of the future. Arise, disciple of the 
Nevertheless; apostle of the Living God. 



THE STORY OF ELISHA MODERNIZED 



I Kings 19: 19. "He departed thence, and found 
Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was ploughing 
with twelve yoke of oxen, and Elijah 
cast his mantle upon him." 

ELISHA, the servant and successor of Elijah, 
was the son of a prosperous farmer in Israel. 
Shaphat, his father, was a man of substance ; but, 
in accordance with the custom of his people, he had 
reared his son to a life of hard labor. 

In the setting of our text we find Elisha a sort 
of superior officer over his father's ploughmen; 
but a ploughman himself. One spring day in the 
early afternoon when Shaphat's ploughs were at 
work in the verdant meadows, and Elisha' s plough 
was the foremost of them all, Elijah, the white- 
haired prophet, came up behind Elisha, and cast 
his coarse spun mantle over the younger man's 
shoulders. ISTo word was spoken ; but the symbolism 
of the act conveyed it's meaning to Shaphat's son, 
and he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. 



ELISHA MODERNIZED 



27 



Shaphat was growing old, and Elisha would soon 
have inherited the rich farm lands of Abel-Meho- 
lah; but in a moment, in spontaneous renunciation, 
Elisha determined to be a spiritual ploughman in 
the Lord's vineyard for the remainder of his life. 
To fortify his resolution he made a fire of the 
wood of his familiar plough ; slew his oxen ; and 
"burned his bridges" behind him. Then he arose, 
and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him. 

Such were the circumstances of the calling of 
Elisha. Some years afterwards, at the death of 
his master, he accepted his appointment as the 
divinely appointed successor of Elijah. "And 
when the sons of the prophets that were at J ericho 
saw him, they said, 'the spirit of Elijah doth rest 
upon Elisha.' And they came to meet him, and 
bowed themselves to the ground before him." 

There are many lessons suggested in the ancient 
record. Let us enumerate a few. 

(1) There is a note of optimism with regard 
to the future: The world, and the Church, live 
and thrive from generation to generation under the 
guiding and upholding hand of God. We are apt 
to magnify the past at the expense of the future ; 
to drop quietly all shadows from the picture as time 
goes on; and to gild the yesterdays with all sorts 
of false romance. We speak of the good old days ; 
of the age of faith; and speak of "now-a-days" 
with a shake of the head, and a long-drawn sigh. 



28 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



The world in general, and the Church in particular, 
are going "to the dogs". This is the attitude of 
the adult who contrasts the righteous behavior of 
the days of his childhood with the extraordinary 
license current in the behavior of the succeeding 
generation. This is the attitude of the man of 
slight historical perspective who labors under the 
mistaken impression that at one time humanity 
achieved approximate perfection, and that it has 
systematically deteriorated ever since. This is the 
attitude of the so-called Orthodox believer who 
shudders at the impious liberalism of modern 
thought, and who forgets that the spirit is leading 
the Church into all truth. In every department of 
thought there is to be discovered this unhealthy pes- 
simism of outlook — comparing disadvantageously 
the present with the past, and prognosticating 
a reign of dire calamity in the untraversed future. 
Elijah, the Sinai of a man, with a heart like a 
thunderstorm, was at one time in his life guilty 
of this spirit of depreciation. He sat one day 
under a Juniper tree, and felt that the times were 
out of joint. God had apparently forsaken His 
inheritance, and was forgetful of His people's wel- 
fare. The future loomed menacingly before him, 
and he saw the faith of Jehovah corrupted to the 
vanishing point. His work seemed to have come 
to nothing, and, so far as he could perceive, there 
was no qualified man to take up his task when he 



ELISHA MODERNIZED 



29 



should lay it down. "It is enough/' he cried, 
"now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am no 
better than my fathers." The fact was, however, 
that whilst Elijah was repining under the juniper 
tree God was preparing the young ploughman of 
Abel-Meholah to wear Elijah's mantle, and to carry 
on Elijah's work. 

Let us recall this fact when we are forecasting 
the collapse of the Church ; when we are bemoaning 
the fall of this, or that, "great man in Israel" ; 
when we are tempted to contrast unfavorably to- 
day with both yesterday, and to-morrow. God is 
not asleep ; He has not forsaken His world ; He is 
rearing His great men for the great hour ; and we 
shall eventually be assured of the fact that "The 
Lord is King; be the people never so impatient". 
There are to-day, at school, at college, in the shop, 
and in the office, young men and young women who 
in due course of time shall be as influential preach- 
ers, and writers, and statesmen, and social leaders, 
as any that the world has ever known — and far 
better adapted to the times and seasons than any 
of their mighty predecessors. Elisha was not Eli- 
jah; but he was the gift of the Living God to the 
Living Israel of his day and generation. God will 
look after the Church and the world far better than 
the most anxious-minded, and censorious, of His 
people. This is the greatest age that has ever burst 
over the hills of time, and to-morrow will be greater. 



30 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



All that we have to do is to possess ourselves of 
faith in God; of faith in humanity; of salutary 
faith in ourselves; and to go about our business. 

(2) In this story there is a note of generous 
admiration: The fifty sons of the prophets be- 
haved towards Elisha in a manner which it were 
well for us to emulate to-day. They bow down be- 
fore a better man than themselves. Elisha is 
younger than they; he is a farm boy, and with 
little, if any, theological training; and yet these 
qualified men of God pay him homage. 

Surely there was blessing in store for Israel 
when she was possessed of such candidates for the 
sacred ministry. Without a murmur the sons of 
the prophets accept Elisha as the true successor 
of the famous Elijah, and accredit him their su- 
perior officer. This ready appreciation was sug- 
gestive of the deference paid Elisha by his fellow- 
preachers throughout his life. The old men, who 
had not achieved conspicuous success themselves, 
did not cast up Elisha' s youth when Elisha' s success 
began. They did not abuse him behind his back 
for his humble origin, and his lack of letters. 

There must have been good theological semi- 
naries in those days ! The sons of the prophets were 
ready to believe in a God-endowed man despite 
his obvious limitations! There are divinity stu- 
dents at the present time who refuse homage to an 
archbishop. They are fully persuaded of the fact 



ELISHA MODERNIZED 31 



that when they begin their active ministry they 
will eclipse all other stars in the firmament of 
contemporary ecclesiasticism ! May God have 
mercy upon their inexperience, and smooth for 
their journey the tortuous path of a saner appraise- 
ment ! 

These prophetical graces are stimulating for 
us to read about at a distance; but they are far 
more beautiful, and satisfying, to God when they 
are exemplified in the everliving present. There 
is no denying the fact that there is altogether too 
much envy, and malice, in the professional world, 
and elsewhere. We dislike to see other men eclips- 
ing us in any particular, especially in our selected 
vocation ; and there are few things that we will not 
do to detract from the growing reputation of an- 
other fellow-mortal. We must self-consciously cul- 
tivate the spirit of magnanimity, and in our per- 
sonal and corporate relationships achieve some 
measure of the generosity, and good manners, of 
the sons of the prophets. 

(3) In this story there is a note of originality: 
Elisha's first instinct was to blot himself out in 
Elijah's coat of camel's hair, and his leathern 
girdle. He began his public ministry wearing those 
ancient and austere accoutrements. Elisha, how- 
ever, was far too sincere a man to continue for long 
time wound up in such cerements. He set out in 
Elijah's mantle, and he performed his first prophet- 



32 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



ical work clothed in such a garb; but he wore it 
awkwardly — the clothes did not fit— and he soon 
cast it aside. Elisha was a smaller and a more 
homely man than Elijah, and self-respect soon sug- 
gested that he adorn himself in less conspicuous 
garb. 

The moral shines clear. We must not demand 
of our young preachers that they stride with the 
same step, and pronounce the same theological shib- 
boleths, as the Elijah of our youth. We possessed 
Elijah for a season, and he fufilled his mission; 
but that is no reason why we should possess Elijah 
indefinitely, and determine his duplication in all 
his successors. Men who preach the word of God 
need above all other men to be men of to-day, and 
not of yesterday. The chances are that you have 
magnified the excellencies of Elijah as the years 
have added up their sum of time, and that the 
Elijah of your recollection would appear a differ- 
ent and a less fascinating person were he to re- 
appear before you clad in the well-remembered 
mantle. 

This suggests, does it not, the theme of origi- 
nality. If there is any result which our civilization 
is achieving — a result apparent to all — it is the 
depersonalizing, and the standardization of men. 
More and more as the days go on we are being 
moulded upon the self-same pattern. Our sup- 
posedly rough edges are being smoothed off in the 



ELISHA MODERNIZED 



33 



factory of custom, and we are being placed upon 
the humanitarian market a finished bromidic prod- 
uct. It is a fortunate thing that we are ticketed ; 
for, save for the label of a distinctive name, we 
might easily be mistaken for one another, and give 
rise to unpleasant complications. We speak alike ; 
we think alike; we act alike; and, saddest of all 
to relate, we are actually beginning to look alike. 
The chances are that before long we shall be wound 
up, and run by clockwork, and speak automatically ! 

Surely it were fitting to make a plea for origi- 
nality. We must be ourselves ; for our own sake ; 
for the delectation of our fellow-men; for the in- 
herent charm of living; and, above all, for God's 
sake. Each life is a gift from the Creator of life. 
It is supposed to have its advent ; its nativity ; its 
epiphany, or manifestation; its struggle; its res- 
urrection; and its pentecostal influence. It is, 
therefore, a serious thing to tamper with, or, to 
endeavor to manipulate, originality. Elisha is 
Elisha; with the talents, the personality, and the 
capacities of Elisha. He is a worth while instru- 
ment in the hands of God as Elisha ; but as an emu- 
lated Elijah he is shorn of his strength, and comes 
perilously near to being a hypocrite. Elisha was 
a gentle, kind, unprepossessing lowland minister; 
Elijah was a tempestuous, passionate, seething 
whirlwind of a man; the one was as unlike the 
other as the green meadows of Abel-Meholah were 



34 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



unlike the savage solitudes of mountainous Gilead. 
Let us see to it, parents, and teachers, and all others 
who are placed in formative positions, that Elisha 
wears his own dress, suitable to his figure and his 
own particular genius. 

Optimism — belief in the Lordship of God for 
good; generous admiration for the good qualities 
and real achievements of our fellow-men ; and the 
sacro-sanctity of originality. Here is a triune 
attitude towards life worthy of our consideration, 
and practice. 



THE MAN WHO MADE A NATION TO SIN 



I Kings 22 : 52. "Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who 
made Israel to sin." 

THIS dread warning and condemnation occurs 
some twenty-three times in the Book of the 
Kings. Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, seems to have 
been a sort of sunken rock in the sea of mediaeval 
Jewish history. Whenever a mighty man found- 
ered, and disappeared beneath the waves of infamy, 
he had wrecked himself upon this dangerous shoal. 

Let us consider the story of A GREAT OP- 
PORTUNITY; A GREAT FAILURE; and A 
GREAT PUNISHMENT. 

(1) A great opportunity : Jeroboam had risen 
from the ranks of the common people. There were 
self-made men in those ancient times as there are 
self-made men to-day. The twentieth century, im- 
pression to the contrary, has no premium upon 
brains and opportunity. Just who Nebat was, 
nobody knows. He lived, no doubt, a quiet, un- 
assuming life, and died an unnoticed death. His 



36 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



claim to fame rests upon the fact that his son was 
a notorious sinner ; a fame which few fathers crave, 
but which many fathers have thrust upon them. 
Disgrace rescues forgotten ancestors from their 
graves, and turns the searchlight of publicity upon 
their buried activities. 

The story is an old one. A young man of 
marked ability attracts the attention of a king. 
Solomon noticed the young Ephthratite, and ap- 
pointed him superintendent of his works. It was 
a dangerous thing for a youth to be elevated above 
his fellows. It always is a dangerous thing. Older 
men are jealous; naturally so; and make it decid- 
edly uncomfortable for the upstart. They speak of 
"pull" ; of "influence" ; of "luck". They wag their 
heads, and shrug their shoulders, in appropriate 
suggestiveness of understanding, and pronounce the 
ultimatum — "a flash in the pan". Jeroboam's su- 
periors in age were highly indignant at his unmer- 
ited promotion. "Jeroboam," they said, "a very 
ordinary man; the son of Nebat; his uncle mur- 
dered the King's Hebrew. Solomon must be in his 
dotage." 

The promotion was a dangerous thing for Jero- 
boam himself. It involved a strong temptation to 
pride. The tendency was lest he should over-reach 
himself. To be a king's favorite is calculated to 
make a man esteem himself beyond his deserts. 
Power, especially in the young and untried, either 



THE NATIONAL SINNER 



37 



makes a man humble, or haughty ; overbearing, or 
modest. There are dunces who cannot decipher 
their own limitations. It is risky to send little 
boats far out to sea. There are men ; clever ; sharp ; 
natty; precise; newspaper fed and magazine fat- 
tened; who lose their heads when their salary is 
increased ! To step from a dungeon into a palace 
is a perilous proceeding, and many unpleasant ego- 
tists are manufactured in the transition. 

The fact is, nevertheless, that with all the danger 
from within, and from without, Jeroboam had a 
great opportunity. Israel at this time, towards the 
latter years of the reign of Solomon, was seething 
with discontent. The levied taxes were heavy. The 
king required much money in order to maintain his 
many wives and concubines and the luxuriousness 
of his court. Forced labor was the order of the 
day. There was much tribal jealousy. Clans, and 
households, were pitted against one another. 

A clever youth like Jeroboam was just the man 
to seize the golden opportunity; to make capital 
out of prevalent misfortune. All that he has to 
do is to perform his duty in his present position, 
and to await the fulfilment of circumstances. 
Jeroboam, however, is impatient. Most young 
men are impatient. The youth oftentimes attempts 
to force the hand of destiny. This bright super- 
intendent of works cannot await God's good time. 
So soon as occasion offers he lifts up his hand 



38 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



against Solomon. The King puts down the revolt, 
and Jeroboam flies into Egypt. He lives there for 
some time, and Pharoah strengthens the ambitious 
pretender. This was the beginning of Egypt's 
interference in the affairs of Israel. Then Solo- 
mon dies, and we have the interview of Rehoboam 
with the leaders of the people. Rehoboam answers 
roughly; he takes the advice of his schoolfellows, 
as many young men have done from that day to 
this; and he says that his little finger shall be 
thicker than his father's arm. 

Here again was Jeroboam's opportunity. God 
declared, "if thou wilt hearken to all that I shall 
command it will be well with thee". If only he 
had been faithful to his privilege a long life, and a 
useful, might have fallen to his lot. 

(2) The Great Failure: Jeroboam was a good 
builder. As architect, and contractor, he had beau- 
tified Jerusalem. But the record of his enterprise, 
and professional talent, is eclipsed by his sin. 

He is afraid that if the people of the northern 
tribes who owe him allegiance go up to the Holy 
City they will be weaned away from his command. 
"If they continue to go up they will turn to their 
people, and kill me." He is not far wrong in his 
reasoning. Religious beliefs die hard. They are 
imbedded in our frame with physical and mental 
growth. They live long. They haunt us as long 
as we live, and they confront us in the world 



THE NATIONAL SINNER 



39 



beyond. Jeroboam knew this. He also realized 
that every to-morrow has two handles — anxiety and 
faith — and so he seized the handle of anxiety, and 
said, "I will make the people idolators. I will 
teach them how to break the Decalogue." He, 
therefore, makes two calves of gold. "Do not go 
up to Jerusalem," he says, "it is a long and a tire- 
some journey. Here is Jehovah for you at your 
own front door." He was a wise man. He appre- 
ciated the truth that nature abhors a vacuum. The 
heart refuses to be permanently emptied. If you 
take away a man's orthodoxy you must give him 
a systematized heresy. If you deprive him of one 
belief you must construct another belief. The 
Israelites had to have some object to worship — 
either Jehovah, or an idol. After this Jeroboam 
built a temple. "Behold this majestic pile," he 
said, "what need is there to travel footsore and 
fatigued to Jerusalem when you have such a 
magnificent building within eye shot" ? Then he 
made priests of the common people; he was a 
plebian himself, and sympathetic towards his own 
class ; and even went so far as to change the date 
of the holy feast of tabernacles. He was the pro- 
fessor of religion made easy. 

J eroboam's plan worked well — for a time. Ex- 
pediency usually works well — for a time. Come 
down to the requirements of laziness, and you will 
lead the mass — for a time. The Israelites took 



40 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



to the new arrangements. Jehovah was dethroned, 
and Jeroboam was enthroned in his place. Worldly 
success, however, has it's drawbacks. It is better, 
after all, to "play the game" — in the long run. 

( 3 ) The Great Punishment : Jeroboam's hand 
withered. Jeroboam's child was stricken. Jero- 
boam's dynasty perished in one generation. His 
"sin found him out", and beyond peradventure. 

Even in this world — appearances sometimes to 
the contrary — the sinner is punished. He has to 
pay the price. If nobody else finds him out his 
sin finds him out. The wicked do not always flour- 
ish as the green bay tree. When they seem to do 
so we should find on close examination that the 
leaves of the bay tree are riddled with plague, and 
that the heart of the trunk of the tree is rotten. 
The house may be beautiful; a veritable million- 
aire's palace; but in the banqueting room there is 
a skeleton at the feast, and along the corridors there 
wanders an unchained ghost. 

J eroboam corrupted the entire nation, morally 
and spiritually. The higher our position the more 
far reaching our influence either for good or for 
bad. Jeroboam is known forever as "Jeroboam, 
the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin". In the 
revelation of St. John when the tribes are men- 
tioned Ephraim is omitted on account of this 
transgression. 

ISTow, what are the lessons ? I believe that 



THE NATIONAL SINNER 



41 



Jeroboam is placed in the Bible by divine inspira- 
tion in order that men in all ages may profit from 
the account of his opportunity ; his failure ; and his 
sin. 

(1) We have a warning against a political 
conception of religion: Some statesmen speak of 
Christianity as though it were a necessary super- 
stition to be maintained for the legal restraint of 
the passions of men. It is supposedly a good thing 
for men and women to be Christians in that Chris- 
tianity makes them, or is calculated to make them, 
law-abiding citizens. The principle is that if you 
give the child something harmless to play with he 
will not damage the furniture. Make Christianity 
a general thing; dilute it of all bigotry; and it 
will minimize the difficulties of both the policeman 
and the magistrate. 

One gets so desperately tired of hearing Chris- 
tianity spoken of as one of many religions, as a 
beneficent system of ethics, and as something that 
compares favorably with Buddhism, and Confu- 
cianism, and a few other Isms. Just as though there 
were any other religion which could be named in 
the same breath with Christianity. Just as though 
any halfway revelations were in the same class 
with "the faith" once for all delivered. Just as 
though politics could decree the measure of Chris- 
tianity's acceptance, or the quality of Christianity's 
worth. Just as though, in the last analysis, the 



42 



THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



relative acceptability of the State had anything to 
do with the absolute sovereignty of "The Truth as 
it is in Christ Jesus" ! 

(2) God disapproves of expediency: We may 
never conscientiously do evil in order that good 
may come. Wrong is wrong, and right is right, 
whatever comes before, or goes after. 

The story of J eroboam is a tremendous call to 
principle as opposed to expediency. Compromise 
never pays — in religion. A thing is either settled 
properly, or improperly — in divine estimation. ]STo 
church, no minister, no Christian, can afford to 
split hairs in spiritual affairs. 

The fact remains, however, that we are fond 
of expediency in the life of organized Christianity 
to-day. Many churches are built without one-half 
of the needed funds in hand. The honesty of the 
future is imprisoned in the selfishness of the pres- 
ent. Let us put up a church — duplicating the 
number of parishes in a community ad nauseam — 
at once, and without providential forethought, or 
conscientious consideration. What does it matter 
that we are unable to pay for it just now. There 
are a hundred communicants in this immediate 
locality who dislike travelling a mile to the House 
of God. We must think of the soul-stirring serv- 
ices which shall be held in the unpaid for sacred 
edifice, and of the ameliorative effect of the sight 
of such an establishment in the community. It is 



THE NATIONAL SINNER 



43 



expediency writ large; it is refined Jesuitism 
written with a flourish. A mortgage is often good 
business; but there are times when, in connection 
with a church, it is poor morality. The question 
to be decided is ever "is it right", not "is it wise". 

(3) The contagion of sin: You start an error 
and you cannot tell to what an extent it will de- 
velop. "Woe to that man by whom the offence 
cometh." An author writes a shady book, a book 
which is, to say the least, "off color". It is, and 
naturally so, a huge success financially; but pure 
and innocent boys and girls lay hold of the filthy 
pages, and suffer defilement. "Woe to the man who 
makes Israel to sin". There is a son of ISTebat, a 
modern J eroboam, who is conspicuously doing this 
sort of thing to-day. He is epigrammatic ; subtle ; 
insinuatingly clever; speciously wise; and pos- 
sessed in marked degree of all the sinuous wiles 
of the modern sophist. He is, in the heady minds 
of heady people, the originator of a cult, and the 
emancipator of self-confessed intellectualists from 
the bonds of an outridden moral code. His books, 
and the sayings contained therein, are quoted with 
delight by hair-brained men and women who ape 
bohemianism. "Woe to the man who makes Israel 
to sin"; for sin is contagious — it spreads like a 
malignant disease. 

Let us turn from Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, 
who made Israel to sin, and focus our attention 



44 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



upon the precepts, and strive to copy the example, 
of Jesus, the son of God, who hath died that we 
might live — live unto righteousness, and our neigh- 
bor's happiness, both in time and in eternity. 



A SCORNED MAN 



II Chronicles 28: 22. 'That King Ahaz." 

THUS is the man branded forever in Holy Writ. 
"That King Ahaz." He left behind him a 
bad memory ; the reputation of being the worst of 
all the Kings of David's Line. He was an apostate 
from the Faith of Israel, and in his reign of six- 
teen years he almost succeeded in stamping out the 
Worship of Jehovah. 

His ignominy was his own; he had only him- 
self to blame. The best of the Prophets had given 
him sound advice. Hosea on the North, and Micah 
on the South, had voiced the note of warning. But, 
as many a young man before and since, he took the 
bit into his own teeth, and traveled his own sweet 
road to hell. 

Let us glance briefly at the history of his life: 
At the outset of his career Ahaz was possessed of a 
fatal broad-mindedness. He was ready to worship 
any god save the True God. He was the type of 
man who says, and is devoid of the remotest idea 



46 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



of what lie implies, "It does not matter what a man 
believes ; we are all bound for the same place." He 
was bound for the Bad Place, and we have every 
reason to believe that he reached his destination ! 

He permitted his own son to pass through the 
fire to Moloch. He was not concerned about the 
comfort or discomfort of his child so long as there 
was the probability of a benefit accruing to him- 
self. He multiplied his divinities, until it required 
a mathematician to keep pace with his pantheon. 

Then war broke out. Sooner or later there is 
always war in the immoral man's camp. The heart 
of Ahaz was moved with fear. The immoral man 
is ever a coward at heart. The Syrians smote him, 
and carried away a large portion of his army into 
captivity. Ahaz invoked foreign help. He im- 
portuned the rulers of Assyria. He sent a present, 
a gift taken out of the House of the Lord, to placate 
their opposition. But the Assyrians accepted the 
gift, and turned a deaf ear to his supplicative 
entreaties. Then he sacrificed unto the Gods of 
Damascus ; but they proved to be the ruin of him, 
and of all Israel. 

In sore straits he cast his eyes on all sides, but 
he forgot to look up. There is a story of a boy 
who went with his father to rob an orchard. The 
father looked around and about him, to right and 
to left, to see as to whether or no he was observed. 
When he was satisfied that there was no one within 



A SCORNED MAN 



47 



eyesight, he started to rob the orchard. Suddenly 
his son shouted, "Father; you have forgotten to 
look up !" Ahaz was the man of inferior expe- 
dients. He took everyone into account save God. 
He failed to lift up his eyes unto the Hills from 
whence would have come his all-sufficing help. The 
result was that he had a hard time, a desperately 
hard time. His enemies increased daily, until at 
last twenty-two tributary monarchs were allied 
against him. 

As a solace in his misery he accentuated his 
idolatries. He saw another style and pattern of 
altar which caught his artistic taste, and he sent 
for the sample, and had it copied that he might 
worship another god. Soothsayers came from 
the East, expert salesmen, and altars were planted 
in every available corner of Jerusalem, until the 
Temple was laid bare, and bereft of worshippers. 
The sacred vessels were placed in the melting-pot ; 
the Great Lava was taken down from its brazen 
base, and placed on stones; and only the Holy 
Light, the Shekinah, was left undisturbed. 

After this — as a fitting climax — Ahaz died. 
He was not buried, however, in the Sepulchres of 
the Kings ; for the Westminster Abbey of the J ews 
was too sacred a place to be polluted by the ashes 
of such a villain ; he was interred outside the city 
limits. 

That King Ahaz! What unutterable scorn is 



48 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



expressed by the Biographer. That King Ahaz. 
The whole record of his life is the record of a 
Godless man who, in his desperation, clutched at 
any straw to save himself. 

Let lis take the story out of its setting in the 
Bible, and apply it to modern times, and to our- 
selves. 

Have none of us bowed the knee to the devil 
that we might achieve earthly things? Old world 
cults had their worshippers, and we have fantastic 
cults, God knows, in Christendom to-day, and in 
the United States of America. 

Many people are abandoning the old simple 
faith of their fathers for faiths which are, to say 
the least, less profoundly true. This is the Era of 
Adulterated Christianity. 

Wherein lies the proselytising power of these 
new heresies ; or these Old Heresies dished up with 
an unfamiliar sauce ? The answer is partly this : 
The Old Faith has been a second-hand affair. It 
was the faith of parental instruction, and as such 
was nominally accepted, as a matter of course. 
The title deeds were never looked into, nor investi- 
gated. The believer believed without knowing 
anything about what he did believe. Then, there 
comes along the new evangel. It is in the air. 
People are talking about it, and as the promoters 
of a patent medicine for the soul, or for the soul 
through the body, they make stupendous claims on 



A SCORNED MAN 



49 



its behalf. They insinuate that the Old Faith is 
out of date, and they suggest, with the charming 
smile of seraphic superiority, that to be abreast of 
the times in affairs religious you must tear a hole 
through the Apostles' Creed, and re-edit the Gospel 
According to the Past. Mortal man listens ; is some- 
what skeptical at first, but having an undue regard 
for his reputation as a reasonable being, and desir- 
ing to get as much out of his religion as possible, 
and failing to realize that giving is of the essence 
of worship, he falls an easy prey to words of 
ten syllables, and to a science which denies the 
fundamental principles of all science. The Gods 
of Damascus, and the Gods of Assyria, usurp the 
preeminence of Jehovah, the True God of Israel! 
What is the result ? Why, applause from the self- 
constituted emancipators of thought, and commen- 
dation from the Sect of the Laodicaeans who feel 
that the new disciple is in a fair way to embark 
with them upon the lukewarm waters of individ- 
ualism. 

Oh, it is a merrie, a merrie game! Hard 
pressed by the hosts of doubt; fast impelled by 
indigestion, or hysteria in its multitudinous forms, 
or neurasthenic imaginations; the wisdom-wooed 
novice places a premium upon arrant selfishness, 
and importunes the Living God for a recipe for 
physical disabilities! These may seem strong 
words; but the circumstances of the case demand 



50 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



strong words. If I have spoken fire, it is because 
there is fuel enough for a mighty conflagration. 
Before theology be discredited, and Iologies be sub- 
stituted in its place, we have a right, minister and 
people alike, to indulge occasionally in passionate 
vocabulary ! 

There is enough in the Old Gospel to keep men 
and women busy all the days of their lives. There 
is enough to transform them into veritable Sons of 
God, and Servants of Jesus Christ. That King 
Ahaz might have been an Israelite indeed in whom 
there was no guile had he but studied the historic 
faith of his own country, and not gone aflirting 
with the Faiths of Damascus, and Assyria. All 
that he sought from afar was close at home, in his 
very midst, had he but possessed the mind of a 
scholar, and been trained, rabbinically trained, to 
differentiate between froth and substance. 

Secondly : Do we not have to pay a heavy price 
for all our minor helps f Ahaz stripped the Temple, 
and sacrificed his son. Do we not have to pay as 
much to-day ? We must give legal tender for all 
that we receive in this world. "Nothing for 
nothing" is the rule of business, and of life. We 
talk of a man's success ; of a fortune accumulated ; 
of a post, a coveted post, won. Yes ; but at what 
a cost ! Faces are turned to the successful which 
say, "Here died sympathy for your fellow-strug- 
glers" ; "Here died generosity" ; "Here died mag- 



A SCORNED MAN 



51 



nanimity." Voices, accusatory voices cry, "You 
are a shrivelled soul; shrivelled in the ladder's 
climb ; shrivelled in the fourth rung" ; "You are 
an embodied conceit ; a personified greed ; a corpse 
of your at one time unselfish self." "Nothing suc- 
ceeds like success?" Quite so; but nothing costs 
so much as success; Ambition is a spendthrift 
which reiterates, "pay, pay, pay." Health; sus- 
ceptibility ; sensitiveness ; pleasure, or the capacity 
for enjoyment; friendship; God; are all in the 
toll. 

What if we gain the whole world, and lose our 
own souls ? Surely, even as Ahaz, we pay too big 
a price. Who is the wise man; who the under- 
standing Man ? Is it not he who realizes that life 
is something more than getting ; to expend oneself 
upon that which perishes ? Is it not he who real- 
izes that life is neither more nor less than the 
perpetuated opportunity of giving ; to expend one's 
possessions, both inward and outward, upon the 
needs of others ? That King Ahaz ! The man of 
inferior expedients; the man of minor helps; is 
forever and always a failure ; whatever the size of 
his bank account, or the accumulation of his real 
estate; and he goes down into history, local or 
universal, as that King Ahaz. 

Thirdly : We see in this story the falseness of 
earth's help: Ahaz tried to propitiate the King of 
Assyria ; but the King of Assyria did not respond. 



52 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



When the imperative moment arrived he looked 
the other way, and let his Brother of Israel manage 
his own affairs as best he might. Then he be- 
thought him of his pocket, and growled for more 
money. "A thousand extra shekels, Ahaz, and I 
might be induced to help you out of your dif- 
ficulties.^ The King of Assyria was an avaricious 
gentleman. AH of our lower alternatives forever 
are avaricious. When we deliberately place our- 
selves in their power they "squeeze us" ; aye, they 
"squeeze us dry." If money is the only cement 
which binds us to our allies then repointing must 
be done constantly, or the fabric of the alliance will 
soon crumble into disrepair. Our sinful friends 
are here to-day, and away to-morrow. In the sun- 
shine they disport themselves most lovingly in our 
presence ; but when the day of darkness comes they 
are nowhere to be found. Lay hold of one of them 
by the heels as he turns to run away, and he will 
place the full blame and responsibility for the un- 
successful transaction upon your devoted shoul- 
ders; confessing himself to be as white as, nay 
whiter than, the new born snow. The only lasting 
help, the help which endures in prosperity and in 
failure, the help which is superior to all the 
vagaries of circumstances, and the fluctuations of 
condition, is the Help of God. 

Finally : The story of Ahaz is a striking illus- 
tration of the fact that sin forces us down. We 



A SCORNED MAN 



53 



begin by little, and we go on toward much. Just a 
slip. We right ourselves. Then a stumble. After 
that a fall. Then the lying down ; the inability to 
rise upon our feet ; and the wallowing in the mire. 
The drunkard of to-day would not have recognized 
himself ten years ago. The portrait of what he 
now is would have been an exaggerated picture 
painted by an unmerciful Hymnologist! The 
cynic began by clever phrases which produced 
laughter among stupid people. Then his growing 
reputation for saying smart things demanded an 
epigram on occasion — his mental ingenuity became 
a vice — and now he is a disbeliever in human 
nature, and a doubter of his God. Sin brings us 
down; its weight is a leaden weight. Sin makes 
white black, and black white ; vice virtue and vir- 
tue vice. We are intended to achieve the measure 
of the stature of the fulness of Christ; but sin 
persisted in lowers us gradually, but most realist- 
ically, to the measure of the stature of the fulness 
of the devil. In Ahaz we have a running com- 
mentary upon the statement that "the wages of 
sin is death." 

"Come now — let us reason together. Though 
your sins be as scarlet they shall be as wool ; though 
they are as crimson they shall be as white as snow." 
"To fall," said St. Chrysostom, "is not so dread- 
ful as to lie where we fall; or to be wounded so 
bad as to refuse to be healed." To the modern 



54 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 

Ahaz, to the up to date Mammon truster, we 
may say in the Name of Jesus Christ, "To him 
that overcometh will I give a white stone, and in 
the stone a new name written." That King Ahaz 
may be changed into "The Disciple whom Jesus 
loved." 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN 



St. Luke 10: 30-38 

THIS portion of Scripture is generally known 
as the Parable of the Good Samaritan. I 
would suggest another name — in my humble opin- 
ion more illuminative — and call it The Parable 
of the Open Road. 

Let Me Present the Picture: The great sun- 
baked and dust-swept highway stretching between 
Jerusalem and Jericho; the road tramped by Pil- 
grims on their way to the Holy City ; the road of 
commerce, along which merchants journeyed to the 
circumference of Palestine, and back again. On 
this highway, singled out for our attention, a 
bruised and bleeding traveler. Passing before him 
in rapid succession a Priest, a Levite, and a Samar- 
itan. On either side of the highway, and far as 
the eye may see, the orientialism of the East in 
architecture ; the verdure and the foliage of a fruit- 
ful climate; and lesser roads and narrow lanes 
intersecting to the utmost horizon. The highway I 



56 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



take to be, as Christ implied, the highway of human 
life. The figures upon the highway, about whom I 
shall have more to say presently, the customary 
people to be met with in this world of time and 
place. The motives and impulses, the vices and 
virtues, are the medley of conditions the clash of 
which make up the sum total of existence. 

Now, (1) We Are to Live Our Life Upon the 
Highway: It is there that disaster occurs; it is 
there that opportunity is met with, and grasped or 
repudiated. This incident did not happen upon a 
by-path. If it had the whole force and application 
of the Parable would be lost. We might then stand 
upon the Highway, shade our eyes from the noon- 
day sun, peer over into the lane along the side, and 
say, "Poor man ; he seems to be in a bad way ; but 
it is his own fault. He should have stuck to the 
beaten tracks ; he had no business wandering into 
unfrequented places." 

Whatever the world may be like; a mosaic of 
sorrow and joy, of sin and righteousness, of self- 
ishness and self-sacrifice, we must live in the heart 
of things if we would achieve our destiny, and 
serve God and man. The highway is neither more 
nor less than our vocation. 



Now, I would have you notice The Four Repre- 
sentative Figures Upon the Highway, figures not 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN 



57 



indigenous to the Parable, or Palestine, but to be 
discovered upon the Highway of Life to-day, and 
in the city of Cleveland. 



The first figure upon the highway is Innocence. 
The second figure upon the highway is Cruelty. 
The third figure upon the highway is Selfish' 
ness; and 

The fourth figure upon the highway is Love. 

(1) Innocence "A man went down from 
Jerusalem to Jericho." We are not told anything 
about the motives, or the character of this traveler. 
Apparently he was a harmless pilgrim, doing no 
one any harm. 

It is Innocence upon the highway of human 
life. Innocence set upon, robbed, stripped of its 
garments; Innocence procured for immoral pur- 
poses ; and all through no fault of its own ! 

This is the appalling mystery of life; of the 
transactions upon the Open Road. How many 
men and women we have known, pure in intention, 
possessed of integrity of character, who have been 
frustrated in their endeavors, ruined in their 
achievement of success, through exterior circum- 
stances for which they were not responsible, and 
over which they had no control. 

The Insoluble Mystery of Irresponsible Pain! 
It has turned more people from faith to faithless- 



58 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



ness than anything else in the world. What does it 
mean ? We do not know. The more we question 
the mystery the more mystified we become. I feel, 
however, that there is a solution of the problem in 
this parable. God is giving us the test not of 
orthodoxy, but of love. The Priest and the Levite 
passed by — the Samaritan stopped and assisted. 
Innocence wronged is an opportunity for man's 
salvation. He may help ; he may give the cup of 
cold water to the thirsty ; he may clothe the naked ; 
he may visit the sick ; he may adopt militant tac- 
tics on behalf of morality. 

Oh, the satisfaction of really being of use ; of 
being able to assert ourselves for the welfare of 
our fellows; of having locality to work upon and 
transform with the light that never was on land or 
sea. The wounded traveler is the medium of the 
happiness which comes of laying down our life for 
the reconstruction of our fellow men. 

(2) Cruelty: This is a gruesome figure — "he 
fell among thieves". It is a realistic figure in our 
midst to-day. The criminal, even as the poor, we 
have ever with us. We read the daily papers, and 
upon every page vice raises its hideous face. 

The Criminal! Why, we do not think much 
about him. Do we ? We know that there are 
prisons, and penitentiaries, and reformatories, with 
their more or less vicious inmates, and we leave 
the matter there. You say, "this is a matter for 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN 



59 



the State to deal with, for the judge, the magistrate, 
and the policeman ; it is outside the province of the 
Church." It may be so; but when I read this par- 
able I find that the responsible parties were the 
thieves. They mutilated the innocent traveler. 

Why, then, does not Jesus accentuate the delib- 
erate guilt of the thieves ? For this reason — in His 
opinion the people who do actual wrong are not so 
bad as the people who do nothing at all. The priest 
and the Levite who passed by were more devilish 
than the robbers who waylaid ! 

That is a strong statement? Yes; but it has 
the backing of Scripture, and it is enforced by the 
tenor of the life of Jesus Christ. 

In the Old Testament, you remember, that on 
one occasion Israel was hard beset by Sisera, and 
his mighty host. The very continuance of the 
Theocracy was in jeopardy. Every Israelite was 
summoned to repel the invader. The towns and 
the cities and the rural districts responded ; all save 
one little hamlet, named Meroz. "Meroz held back. 
She was off the highway, asleep in her mountain 
fastnesses. Meroz heeded not the trumpet blast, 
but fed her bleating sheep upon the verdant hills. 
What was the verdict of the inspired prophetess, 
Deborah? 'Curse ye, Meroz, saith the Angel of 
the Lord ; curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof ; 
for they came not to the help of the Lord, to the 
help of the Lord against the mighty.' " 



60 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



Or, turn to Christ's teaching. There is the 
parable of Dives and Lazarus. Dives was doomed 
to punishment. "In hell he lifted up his eyes, 
being in torment." Why ? Not because, as Dore 
in his famous picture would suggest, he had done 
active injury to Lazarus, but because every day as 
he passed by the lodge gate in his chariot he turned 
away his head in loathing at sight of the beggar's 
sores. He did nothing — therefore he was damned ! 

Or, take the man with one talent. Why was 
he censured? JSTot because he used his money in 
destructive channels ; but because he did not utilize 
it at all. In the twentieth century that man would 
be a promoter of bogus companies ; getting the dol- 
lars of others, and not risking a cent himself ! 

My friends, this is a sad as well as a glad world ; 
there is much to be done for Christ and man ; and 
if we do nothing, if we sit complacently with folded 
hands and let the world go by; then, in God's 
sight we are more culpable than the originators of 
sin. 

Here lay this poor man. He was in pain ; real 
pain, for he was a Jewish worshipper, not a Chris- 
tian Scientist ; he needed succor. The Priest and 
the Levite were more cruel than the robber band. 

(3) Selfishness: This is a familiar figure; 
we have seen him, we have seen her, so often ; alas, 
the features are to be found in our own physiog- 
nomy. We have been throwing stones at the Priest 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN 



61 



and the Levite, but perhaps we are somewhat 
Priestly, in the wrong sense, and Levitical our- 
selves ! 

The Priest, no doubt, was going down to Jer- 
icho to hold service; the Levite, in all likelihood, 
to attend the synagogue worship. As they trudge 
along the highway they see in the distance a con- 
fused object lying prone upon the road. They ap- 
proach nearer, and it assumes the shape of a man, 
and a man bedraggled and covered with blood. 
The Priest stops; looks the man over; feels in- 
clined to do something for the unfortunate victim, 
but then remembers the time. "I should like to 
help this man/' he says, "but service is at eleven 
o'clock, and it would never do to keep the congre- 
gation waiting." So, on the stroke of the hour, 
clad in immaculate surplice, and appropriate stole, 
he takes his accustomed place in the chancel, and 
chants, in silvered intonation, the Daily Exhorta- 
tion! 

And the Levite? Why, some people are so 
literal in their interpretation of the highway that 
in London, England, they stick to Regent Street, 
and never go through Whitechapel, and in New 
York they parade Fifth Avenue, and never trouble 
the East Side with their presence. But, when on 
Regent Street, or Fifth Avenue, they see a revolt- 
ing sight, emblematic of poverty or misery, they 
put their embroidered handkerchiefs up to their 



62 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



eyes, if they are women, drawing in convulsively 
their skirts, and pass by on the other side. a TIgh !" 
they say, "did yon see that ? Horrible, was it not ? 
I suppose such things exist; but it does not do to 
think about them; does it? Let us go home and 
forget all about it." Oh, the great Sect of the 
Nothingists ! The largest denomination on the 
face of the earth. Their constitution, purely 
negative, is never a subject of controversy from 
within. They are infallible! How the Blessed 
Master, who went about doing good, despises them ; 
for they are the contradiction of His every word 
and deed. 

My friends, let us be up and doing for Christ 
and man. Let us be Christians, not IsTothingists. 
Let us for the future live our old life in the old 
surroundings in a new way. Duties literally spring 
out of the ground beneath our feet; we shall 
stumble over them unless we have a care. Let us 
look for the wounded traveler to-morrow and all 
the days, and play the part of the Good Samaritan. 

(4) Love: Thank God that we have this figure 
to close with. The Good Samaritan was, probably, 
an ordinary looking man. He would have been in 
appearance most disappointing from a lady novel- 
ist's point of view. He was not arrayed in embroi- 
dered phylacteries ; his advent was not heralded by a 
trumpet articulated by his own breath. He was the 
kind of man who would not stand out in a crowd ; 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN 



63 



but he himself, and his purse, were at the service 
of the traveler. How often we meet this Figure of 
Love. More often to-day than ever before. Unas- 
suming men and women going about even as the 
Master went about doing good. On the great High- 
way, the Open Road of Human Life, amid the 
anthems of the glad, the groans of the pain-racked, 
the reptile devilishness of the Tempter, above the 
surging conflict of tumultuous opinion, Love, Be- 
jeweled Love, greater than faith, more majestic 
than hope, soothing, comforting, and inspiring in 
the streets and haunts of men. Jesus incarnated 
in the person of His Disciples. 



How does Christ close the Parable ? 
exhortation — brief, terse, and emphatic — ' 
and do likewise. 



With an 

Go thou, 



THE CITIES OF REFUGE 



Joshua 20: 2. "Speak to the Children of Israel, saying, 
Appoint you Cities of Refuge." 

HP HE ancient Jews were the happy possessors of 
Cities of Refuge. The murderer who had 
slain his fellow man unawares, that is, unwittingly, 
and who in our superior civilization would at least 
be found guilty of manslaughter, and punished 
accordingly, could flee to any one of these several 
cities, six in all, and be free from the assaults of 
justice, and the anger of the avenging kin. It was 
a piece of Divine Legislation in keeping with the 
wisdom of the theocratic government of the Chosen 
People. A wholesome and merciful allowance was 
made for the unpremeditated weakness of men. 

He is a wise man who has a knowledge of his 
own powers, but he is a wiser man who is imbued 
with an accurate consciousness of his own limita- 
tions ; for the one person against whom we have all 
of us to be on our everlasting guard is self. In 
keeping, then, with the Israelites of olden time, 



THE CITIES OF REFUGE 



65 



who made definite provision for their shortcomings, 
I have my own cities of Refuge, my own Kedesh, 
and Shechem, and Hebron, and Bezer, and Ramoth, 
and Golan, whither I flee to escape my implacable 
enemy — myself. 

For myself is an enemy to me ; indeed it is ; and 
in this respect I speak for all. This eminently 
respectable myself — that I dress in as good clothes 
as I can afford to buy, and in the uniform of the 
King of Kings at that, that I feed three times a 
day, and lay down to sleep eight hours out of twen- 
ty-four, that I exercise systematically, to keep the 
flush of health upon its outer casing, that I would 
have all people think to be high-minded, self-con- 
trolled, and possessed of the noblest ideals ; that, in 
fact, I have dared to set up in pulpits, and on 
platforms, and made preach and speak to appar- 
ently honest folk, telling the same honest folk what 
they ought to think, to say, and to perform, is an 
enemy to me ; is in truth, a fellow I should hate to 
have any one know too well. 

My perpetuated warfare has ever been with 
this same myself — this myself where hot fevers 
dwell, where fierce passions run riot, where the 
Devil, entrenched behind the barricade of flesh, 
flings his choking gases, and by strategy unrecog- 
nized in the conventions of The Hague undermines 
the citadel of my cherished self-respect. The sur- 
roundings of my life may from time to time be 



66 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



inimical to my true development, the maladversions 
of my fellow men may contribute to the frustration 
of my apprehension of the Ego as ordained of God, 
but my inveterate and seemingly invulnerable 
Arch Antagonist, the danger of my soul, and 
the peril of my happiness, is this unsleeping, ever- 
vigilant, persistently jeering, no-quarter-giving 
opponent, myself. 

I have, therefore, founded and equipped Cities 
of Refuge where I may flee from the Jewry of 
myself ; Kedeshs, and Shechems, and Hebrons, and 
Bezers, and Ramoths, and Golans of the soul, where 
I may fling aside the accoutrements of conflict and 
inaugurate that peace which is alone well worth 
the consummation, the armistice of myself with me. 

My six cities of Refuge are as follows, and I 
hand them on with qualifications of temperament 
and experience to those of you who are intent upon 
the subjugation of the forces within personality, 
rather than without. 

The first, and I think the foremost, City of 
Refuge is WORK. I work now because I like it, 
I have come in this respect to live by the Law of 
Liberty, but formerly it was not so. In the old 
days I had far rather spend money than earn it, 
and I could loaf as thoroughly and wholeheartedly 
as the other man ; I was not afraid to give up work 
and be a parasite, for some one will always look 
out for the lazy as well as the sick. But now I work 



THE CITIES OF REFUGE 



67 



because I respect myself at work, and am at rest 
with the finite without me, and the infinite within 
me. I find that when I am at work I am Dr. 
Jekyll; and in idleness I would be fearful of de- 
generating into Mr. Hyde. Work is the salvation 
of my soul, not in an evangelical sense, but at any 
rate in common sense ; for it saves me from myself, 
the horror that comes home to men's business and 
bosoms. I have come to the conclusion by my own 
experience and observation that crime is largely 
the product of leisure, of unrestrained leisure, and 
that most of the moral lesions that affect individ- 
uals could be cured by sawing wood. Oh ! the joy, 
when the problems of life get too agonizing in their 
masked periodicity for the consecutive straining of 
the limited human mind ; when friends disappoint 
us in their inconsistency, and suggest by their 
behavior the untrustworthiness of human nature ; 
when health falters in its uphill fight, and presses 
the unbecoming self -consciousness of the body upon 
a refined mental perspective ; when domestic affairs 
enervate our satisfaction by their harrowing ob- 
trusiveness; when the reading of Biography with 
its completed picture of the individual life por- 
trayed in a few hours' reading indicates the strug- 
gle of life as inconsequential placed against the 
background of its undeniable brevity; when, in 
fact, things go wrong, and the world seems impreg- 
nated with the impish and elfish desire to strangle 



68 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



the happiness of life; what a joy to hie ourselves 
to the City of Work; to pass through the time- 
honored portals, and find our way along the streets 
which in the noise of their traffic deaden the sounds 
that have thronged discordantly upon our world- 
wearied ears, and to enter the hives of industry, 
where in occupation, absorbing occupation, we may 
find the solace of heartache, and the anasthesia of 
care. 



The second City of Refuge, and it is geograph- 
ically situated hard by the first, is the City of 
Order. It is a truism, but it is a truism frequently 
overlooked, that order is the prerequisite of suc- 
cessful work ; that if we do not compel ourselves to 
system we get little accomplished, and that little 
unsatisfactorily. If I worked only when I felt like 
it you could contain the amount in a pint measure, 
and the quality in a window-pane. Inspiration is 
all right in its place, and that place a confined area, 
but occasional inspiration is the greatest humbug 
let loose in the haunts of men. The heart has its 
habits as well as the mind, and the world's best 
work, noblest poetry, highest art, and divinest 
prophecy have come through men who were pound- 
ing away so many hours a day; who appreciated 
the fact that genius is largely the capacity for tak- 
ing infinite pains. Huxley was a genius in natural 



THE CITIES OF REFUGE 



69 



science, and Huxley worked from seven o'clock in 
the morning to midnight every day of his life, with 
an occasional jaunt to Switzerland or Wales to 
resuscitate his tired body. Archbishop Benson of 
Canterbury was an ecclesiastical genius, and yet in 
his Biography written by his son, who had good 
cause to know the truth, he slept only five hours 
out of the twenty-four, and spent the other nine- 
teen in the multifarious duties of his high calling. 
So with all the great men of Art, and Letters, and 
of Professional or Commercial renown, regularity 
of application has ever been the rule and not the 
exception. By system we not only accomplish so 
much more, but we achieve a peculiar poise, and a 
blissful contentment with self. An ordered day is 
like a swept and tidied room; an unordered day 
is like a cluttered desk, or a frowsy woman. The 
Shechem of Habit ; ah ! this is a City which if one 
has ever visited he will be loath to leave. The 
streets of the City are pure gold, and the pavements 
are of precious stones. The pilgrim to this mecca 
of peace will forget his nomadic tendencies, apply 
for citizenship, and be content to spend his life 
within its protective walls. 

The third City of Refuge is Family. Any man 
would be ashamed to confess how many vile and 
blackguard thoughts and possibilities, have lunged 
at him only to be warded off by this heart shield ; 
how, not sometimes, but often, the presence of the 



70 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



wife and the wistful faces of the little children, 
have bestowed peace, and averted disaster, as if an 
army with banners had moved to the succour of a 
beleaguered town. A good bachelor must be either 
a strong and noble man, or an anaemic, bloodless 
paste. Most of us are neither ; we are just ordinary 
men, we are simply human without any qualifica- 
tions, and ordinary, human men need a wife and 
children as a locomotive needs an engineer, to pre- 
vent a wreck, as well as to make it go. This is the 
Inner City in a man's life, the Secret City such 
as exists in China, and such as was to be found in 
ancient urban civilizations dissipated in the cen- 
turies. Here is the City which stands sentinel in 
the center of the outlying circle of all the cities of 
Kefuge — the Hebron of the Heart— and into which 
a man may shut himself unpursued by the hosts of 
the market place. There is sometimes a pain await- 
ing a man across his own threshold, but there is 
the anodyne of love to soothe the wounded feelings, 
and to foster hope in the travail of despair. There 
is sunshine there, and calm, and the odor of fra- 
grant flowers, and an earth and sky crowded with a 
flooded glory. The gates of this City stand open 
by day and night, and the humblest man in the 
estimation of his fellow-men may pass inside the 
charmed area, and receive as a King within his 
kingdom the homage of his subjects. The only 
requisite is that the King shall be kingly, and 



THE CITIES OF REFUGE 



71 



reign by the virtue of a selfless regard for the wel- 
fare of all. The City of Home ! Blessed indeed is 
the man, blessed indeed is the woman, who has 
such a refuge from all the malevolences of life; 
who has the privilege of escape from the larger 
world to this smaller world, this world within the 
world; who by their sacrifice of short-sighted self- 
ishness have the opportunity at any hour of leav- 
ing the outer court with its discordant necessities 
for the Holy Place, where law is submerged in the 
dictates of love, and the atmosphere is vibrant with 
the harmonies of Heaven. Such is Hebron in the 
Hill Country of Judah; fairer, and more secure 
than all the Cities of the Plain. 

The fourth City of Refuge is Forgiveness. I 
am speaking of the escape from self, and self is 
never so tyrannical as when its amour propre is 
wounded by the aspersions, just or unjust, of other 
people. It is then that self learns to hate, and the 
only hope of contentment lies in flight to the city 
of forgiveness, Bezer, beyond the Jordan at Jer- 
icho eastward. For hate, my friends, does not pay. 
It is pure waste. It exhausts our vital forces, and 
gives us nothing in return. Why should I let my 
enemy rob me of sleep ? I shall put aside all feel- 
ing about him, even if it takes as much moral ef- 
fort as a drunkard needs to refuse his drink. I 
shall endeavor to emulate the immortal Lincoln, of 
whom Emerson says, "His heart was as large as the 



72 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



world, yet it had no room in it for the memory of a 
wrong." I shall strive to practise the common sense 
axiom of Paul Morton who when asked if he did 
not like to get even with anyone who had done him 
an injury, replied, "No, I haven't time. I am too 
busy." To get rid of hate and its spendthrift 
results we must hie ourselves to the City of For- 
giveness, the city set upon the Heights. To bear 
grudges, to harbor bitter animosities, to wish evil 
to any man, is to dwell in the miasmatic swamps 
of the lowlands, and to roam at large in the uncir- 
cumscribed spaces of Judaea subjected to all the 
requirements of the law for man. I know of 
nothing that so robs the soul of peace, and the life 
of that equanimity which is essential to correspond- 
ence with opportunity, as the dwelling upon the 
wrongs inflicted upon us, wittingly or unwittingly, 
by our fellow-men. It takes the angel out of us, it 
dries the fountain of charity within our heart, and 
turns the crystal water into poison. It deprives 
the mind even of the power of concentration, and 
is a certain prelude to paucity of thought and 
effort. The City of Forgiveness, easy of access, 
and nearer at hand than all the Cities of refuge, is 
within reach of the angered heart and the clouded 
brain, and welcomes its pilgrims with the out- 
stretched arms of Jesus Christ Himself who said, 
"Love your enemies ; do good to those who despite- 
fully use you; forgive your Brethren their debts, 



THE CITIES OF REFUGE 



73 



even as you would expect God to forgive you your 
trespasses." 

The fifth City of Refuge is Humor. I say this 
in all seriousness, for I believe with all my heart 
in the religious value of humor. Self is prone to 
take itself too seriously, to esteem itself above its 
just deserts, and the only effective medicine for 
recovery, a bitter physic, but most necessary, is 
laughter. The higher moods of the soul have 
always a tendency to grow unhealthy. It is but a 
step from the ripe to the rotten, and spiritual 
ecstasy is apt to run into refined sensuousness. 
What an argument, or a text of scripture, could 
never reach has been transfixed by a smile. 
The Walls of many a spiritual Jericho folly have 
tumbled at the sound of laughter. For the dis- 
tinguishing quality of humor is its inherent sanity. 
People deep in love do not laugh much, because 
they are quite insane. The egotist, besieged with 
an overweening sense of dignity, also laughs but 
little, because he is altogether crazy. The Religious 
Bigot is monstrously solemn for the same reason. 
When Self would insist that the Hemispheres are 
revolving around you as their orbit, and so infer 
that the community is inappreciative of the ines- 
timable privilege of possessing you as a fellow 
citizen, look in the Mirror, my friend, and behold- 
ing the face of a simpering and self-inflated fool, 
laugh until the tears come into your eyes, that, cry- 



74 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



ing with hilarity you may purge mediocrity of 
its esteemed infallibility! The City of Humor, 
Eamoth in Gilead, the home of the Gadarenes ; the 
City of Fun ; where would we be, most of us, with 
our long-drawn faces, and our grotesque self-im- 
portance, if we never entered its hospitable enclos- 
ures, and permitted ourselves temporary residence 
at least in its homes of health and merriment ! How 
altogether insupportable would be the burden of 
living, and how implacable the fact of death! I 
entered its precincts when the load of myself and 
the weight of my fellows was as a leaden pack that 
crushed my enfeebled shoulders to the ground, and 
what did I find? Why, the humor of kindly 
hearts, the friendly wit that was bubbling over 
with a filled to the brim humanity, surgical smiles 
that lanced my too sickly sentiments, sunny 
laughter that rebuked my narrow thought, and dis- 
infectant raillery that played fond havoc with my 
egotisms. The inhabitants were friends, each and 
every one of them, and their friendship was mani- 
fested in this — that they made my follies appear 
ridiculous. 



The last City of Refuge, for though there are 
many more I confine myself to six that our allegory 
may he complete, is the Church. Here, if you will, 
is a resort far removed from the world of men, and 
in which the world of self is translated into the 



THE CITIES OF REFUGE 



75 



fairest colors, and the most likeable proportions. 
A City set upon an hill, eternal in time and lasting 
in eternity ; the Golan of Bashan on Earth, and the 
New Jerusalem in the Heavens. Whatever your 
sorrows, whatever your sins, whatever the struggles 
within, and the manifold wrestlings without, this is 
none other than the metropolis of the Soul, and 
the Capitol of the Heart of Man. 

It cannot be denied, however, that traveling to 
this City of Eefuge, that going to Church, is some- 
what out of fashion. So much so, in fact, that it is 
fashionable in certain quarters to jest at the travel- 
lers who are accustomed to make the journey. A 
jesting, by the way, that bespeaks the possession of 
the most elementary sense of wit, and which re- 
dounds to the excruciating taste of the jester. By 
this present widespread unpopularity of the city of 
Golan we are missing much that is truly fine 
and well worth while; and we are permitting 
the gratuitous assumptions of impertinent people 
to rob us of a sterling privilege. 

Why should we flee periodically to this City of 
Eefuge ? Here is one reason, and not the deepest 
nor the most spiritual. Because it is the oldest City 
upon the face of the Earth. Under one name or 
another it has always existed, and its antiquity ante- 
dates even the beginning of Free Masonry. It is a 
comfort and an inspiration to belong to an organiza- 
tion that has persisted throughout the smiles and the 



76 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



frowns of the Ages. In the Church as she is to-day 
we claim membership with that Institution whose 
"Altar Fires Moses builded in the Wilderness, 
whose services were held in the Catacombs of Rome 
in the reign of Nero, whose lofty Cathedrals grace 
Milan and Cologne, and whose weekly gatherings 
still take place in every hamlet and city of the civ- 
ilized world." I am drawn as with the cords of a 
magnet to this antiquity, to this connected triumph 
over time, and I feel with pride that I am a Citizen 
of no mean City. So for this reason, and for many 
others, I deplore the present smallness of the popu- 
lation of Golan, and advocate a wholesale Pilgrim- 
age to her numerous shrines. 



Kedesh, Shechem, Hebron, Bezer, Ramoth, 
Golan — and the Greatest of these is Golan; the 
City of God. 



COURAGE 



Joshua 10: 25. "Be strong, and of a good courage." 

I WANT to speak to you about what has been 
called "the loftiest of all human qualities." A 
quality which is much in evidence in this era of 
unprecedented warfare — in the countries involved 
in bloodshed, as well as in our own, until recently, 
neutral land, where preparedness is the question of 
the hour. A quality which all educated and effec- 
tive life demands, in the home, in the counting 
house, in the halls of learning, and in the houses 
of parliament. A quality which has many specious 
counterfeits, and concerning which our thought 
ought to be clarified. 

That quality, then, and my subject, is courage. 
The derivation of the word, as I have recently 
discovered through extensive reading, for it never 
occurred to me of my own volition, is "cor" — the 
heart of a man. For anyone to lose heart, as the 
saying is, is to lose courage — the power of passive 
or aggressive resistence. Courage is the foundation, 



78 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



the groundwork, of a man — as a man's courage is, 
so is the man. I have also discovered that the 
Ancients, in their analytical wisdom, gave to cour- 
age the name of "virtus" — the substance of all the 
virtues. 

Now this courage — this Cor, the heart of a 
man — this virtus, the substance of all the virtues, 
is never found in the fulness of its proportions in 
any man. We may be courageous in this or that 
part of our nature ; but we are not courageous in 
all. I know a man in Canada who recently re- 
ceived the D. S. O., the Distinguished Service 
Order, for conspicuous bravery upon the field of 
battle. He has my admiration as a courageous 
man, courageous in the face of physical danger. 
But I know the man in his life of peaceful pursuit 
at home, and he is the most timidly conservative 
of men; afraid to express an opinion that every- 
body else does not express upon matters of current 
concern. He would never receive a D. S. O. so 
far as his intellectual processes are involved. He 
is a physical hero, and a mental coward. 

I know a man — I would not have to travel 
far to find him — I rather imagine that I am that 
kind of man myself — who is fearless so far as the 
Truth is concerned, who does not confound ortho- 
doxy with the summum bonum of thought, and who 
would not let any ecclesiastical tribunal do his 
thinking for him, and yet he shivers at the necessity 



THE GRACE OF COURAGE 



79 



of punishing a recalcitrant dog, for fear that the 
dog may devour him ! He is an intellectual hero ; 
but apparently a physical coward. 

So is it with all men. No man is synthetically 
courageous ; courageous in every department of his 
nature. Somewhere, or other, he has his breaking 
strain. "Find out the region of a man's courage, 
and you have discovered the man." 

Now, what are some of the kinds of courage 
of which human nature is capable? 

(1) As already indicated, there is physical 
courage : Such courage is not to be despised. It is 
worthy of the Victoria Cross, of the Legion of 
Honor, of the Iron Cross, and of that Cross which 
is so prolific on the battle-fields of Europe to-day 
— the wooden cross upon a hastily constructed 
grave. All honor to the man who is calm, and col- 
lected, in the hour of vital crisis, and who is com- 
petent to stand in the presence of death without 
a tremor. 

It is sometimes said that physical courage is 
instinctive; that it is an initial gift, inherent in 
the individual, and that it cannot be cultivated. 
No doubt, with qualifications, this is true ; although 
one would be prone here to substitute insensibility 
to danger, for courage. There are those to whom it 
is as natural to cringe with fear, as it is for others 
to meet peril with unflinching mein. Physical 
courage, however, may be cultivated. 



80 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



Again, I would say that I have spoken to many 
men who have spent the last two years, off and on, 
in the trenches of Flanders, and elsewhere. They 
have told me, almost without exception, that the 
first experience of being under fire is a harrowing 
experience, that a man had rather be anywhere in 
the world than exposed to the hail of shrapnel, and 
the fumes of choking gas. The first inclination is 
often an inclination to run, to run anywhere, to 
get away from the livid hell of flame, and the 
nerve torture of unremittent sound. But, as ex- 
perience increases, and as a man's will and reason 
come to the rescue of his bodily weakness, courage, 
unfailing courage, becomes second nature, so per- 
sistent in its exercise as to be unconscious in its 
performance to the possessor. 

We should, as individuals, and as a nation, 
cultivate the virtue of physical courage. The con- 
ditions of modern life are against the condition, 
and its achievement. The prevalence of unprece- 
dented luxury is unfavorable to the existence, 
and the development of physical courage. The cir- 
cumstances of our life; the comforts which sur- 
round us on every side, pampering the body to the 
verge of softness and beyond ; are inimical to that 
stoicism of endurance so noticeable in the Fathers 
of our Republic. America, through her very late 
participation in this world war, is in danger of 
sinking into the slough of luxury — that luxury 



THE GRACE OF COURAGE 



81 



which enervates the sinews and the resistance of 
a people, in the individual and the mass. The 
nations of Europe have, at least, escaped with their 
manhood, and the stream of self-indulgence which 
they have washed off with the horrors of conflict 
is flowing westward. War is a stern school, but 
it is a school where men learn noble things, and 
Belgium, France, England, Russia, and the rest 
have been crucified upon the cross of duty, and 
their resurrection is assured. We have to beware 
lest in America after this war is over children are 
fewer and fewer; men more and more profligate; 
and women more and more pleasure loving ; until 
some great cataclysm of physical degeneracy en- 
folds us in a deluge of besotted self-indulgence. 
We must consciously educate ourselves in physical 
courage, learning to endure hardness as good sol- 
diers in all departments of life, because all types 
of courage are related to, and closely dependent 
upon, the physical. Boldness of body begets bold- 
ness of mind and spirit. Physical courage is 
symptomatic and correlative, as well as absolute. 

(2) Moral courage: Although associated with 
physical courage, moral courage stands upon a 
higher plane. The root idea of its expression is 
based upon principle. To be morally brave we 
must be moved by a superlative motive superior 
to all other considerations. To do what we consider 
to be the right thing to do, whatever other people 



82 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



may say ; to move onwards over all obstacles toward 
some conscientious result; that is moral courage. 
To tread popularity under foot for the sake of 
principle; that it is to be truly heroic. What 
picturesqueness moral courage would give to life, 
if universally applied. Life is dull in exact pro- 
portion to our moral cowardice. People speak 
alike; dress alike; act alike; and, God help those 
of us who are handsome, are actually beginning to 
look alike ! Civilization tends toward uniformity ; 
whereas progress is achieved, and interest and 
enthusiasm are maintained, through diversity. 
Only moral courage may slay unanimity; there- 
fore, moral courage is what we need above all 
things. 

A public holiday is past. We are still living 
in the aroma of its occurrence. Was it not, as all 
holidays are, soul benumbing, and stifling to our 
artistic sense? A prevalent monotony held us in 
its bloodletting grip. The creaking boots; the 
Sunday clothes of the poor. The smoking motors, 
and the immaculate clothes of the rich. The tired 
children at the close of day, and the still more 
tired parents. The sameness of occupation, or the 
lack of occupation, clogged upon us all. What a 
difference to-day. The factories, and shops, and 
homes, are thronged with men and women and chil- 
dren performing their specialized tasks. IsTo two 
people are doing the same thing, or at any rate, 



THE GRACE OF COURAGE 



83 



they are not doing it in the same way. The call 
of duty has produced variety. Moral courage in 
its operation has cleared the murky skies. Or, 
think of our homes as an illustration. They are 
furnished with the furniture with which our neigh- 
bors' homes, of the same social status, are fur- 
nished. It is all desperately dull, and boresome. 
But, if each family decked their houses with those 
things which predilection would suggest, irrespec- 
tive of their neighbors' estimation of the appro- 
priateness of the decoration, we should have a 
charming variety of taste's expression, calculated 
to- alleviate monotony, and enlarge the will to 
live ! 

The ordinary man needs the moral courage to 
adventure the extraordinary thing. To live out the 
law of our own being, and to do the things that we 
are meant to do, and so achieve our self-realization 
upon the highest levels, would make the world 
worth while. We should have our Daniels then in 
Babylon, and our Pauls in Borne. 

What a field there is in business for the practice 
of moral courage. A man told me not long ago that 
it is impossible for a man to be honest in business. 
He said that all is fair in war, love, and business ; 
that if you would get ahead of the other man you 
must be Cassius-like in your shrewdness. The 
man was a liar, and, in his heart of hearts, I think 
that he knew that he was a liar, and that he was 



84 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



indulging in the culpable man's exercise of special 
pleading. Any man with moral courage can be 
honest anywhere, in whatever situation be may 
happen to be placed — whether in the sale of tobacco, 
or in the sale of Gospel Goods. To face the possi- 
bility of poverty like a man, and to know that to 
be rich is a mixed blessing ; to face the possibility 
of mediocrity like a man, and to know that to be 
prominent is not necessarily to be happy ; such an 
attitude, induced and superinduced by moral cour- 
age, spells honesty in any vocation. As business 
men, as professional men, as sociological experts, 
as civic reformers, let us build our outlook and 
our endeavors upon the cornerstone of moral cour- 
age, then the building which we rear of all our life's 
opportunities will be well compacted together, and 
able to withstand the winds and the storms of 
antagonistic and adverse oppositions. 

(3) Intellectual Courage: So far as our minds 
are concerned we are either imitative, or self- 
assertive. We either accept the opinions of other 
people as our own, or we assume the opposite of 
what our fellows believe to be true. We are either 
conservative or radical, and so are afraid of either 
the charge of radicalism or conservatism. It is 
thus that we are temperamentally disposed, but to 
rest there, to remain throughout our life as we were 
constituted at our birth, is to be in either case a 
coward. We are to seek truth for truth's sake, 



THE GRACE OF COURAGE 



85 



irrespective as to whether or no we agree in con- 
viction with the conservative or the iconoclast. 

Take Politics: To what is the prevailing apathy, 
and, withal, the fantastic enthusiasm, of Americans 
in relation to things governmental, due? Not 
ignorance; we have a genius, an innate sagacity, 
for public affairs. Not a low standard of morality ; 
we are, as a people, essentially moral. It is a float- 
ing with the tide ; or a fighting of the current for 
mere fighting's sake. 

Neither the Republican nor the Democrat has 
a monopoly of cowardice. To listen to what the 
crowd say, in order to affirm Amen, or No, is not 
brave. One is as weak as the other. 

What is needed politically, as in many other 
directions that one might name, is that people 
should think for themselves, and form their opin- 
ions for themselves, whether their opinion is agree- 
able or hostile to what other people think and 
believe. Then we should have statesmen, not poli- 
ticians, and truth would reign supreme, with fair 
face uplifted to the sky. 

We have spoken then, in fragmentary fashion, 
about courage ; physical, moral, and mental. 

How may we be courageous in body, mind, and 
soul? (1) We must possess the power of being 
possessed: We must know what it is to be mastered 
by an idea. Seeing all objects w r e are to select one 
toward which, with might and main, we shall strive. 



86 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



With Paul, we must be able in all truthfulness to 
assert, "this one thing I do." Our energy is to be 
concentrative, not diffusive. 

(2) We must he devoid of self-consciousness. 
To be always thinking of one's self is death to 
every noble thought and act. Self -consciousness is 
the suicide of courage. Affectation is personal 
damnation. To be mastered by a principle one 
must be selfless. The coward is always the "pro 
and con egotist." 

(3) We must glorify and achieve simplicity: 
I am not great, great as a man, or great as a 
preacher, unless I am clever enough to be simple. 
Complexity is a dissipation of energy. "Except 
ye become as a little child," in business, and in all 
else, ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of cour- 
ageous hearts. 

Directness, self-forgetfulness, and simplicity, 
well mixed together, and the ingredients of each 
proportionately mixed together, this is the recipe of 
courage — courage physical, mental, and moral. 

All hail, then, to courage. This is the funda- 
mental, the soul-quality, needed in the solution of 
America's problems, in the small and in the great. 
We must have courage, in the singular and in the 
plural, if, in the words of Phillips Brooks, we 
would place upon humanity's candlestick a new 
type of virile manhood to give light to the world. 

I can see no transfigured future ahead of us 3 



THE GRACE OF COURAGE 



87 



ill the reconstruction of society which trembles in 
the womb of to-morrow's peace ; no vindication of 
the travail which has ushered us into nationhood ; 
without the possession of courage, domestic, com- 
mercial, professional, political, literary, social, and 
religious. Let us then, as individuals, and as an 
organization, be "strong and of a good courage." 

Note: In this sermon the author is obviously 
indebted to a well-known article in "The Published 
Addresses of Phillips Brooks." 



'THE BOOKS WERE OPENED" 



Revelation 20: 12. 

^T*HIS is a figure of speech, and, as such, stands 
for something. The Bible from beginning to 
end pictures divine truths under the garb of 
metaphor, or simile, to meet the level of our finite 
minds. The divine is expressed, and necessarily 
so, in terms of the human. 

"The Books were opened." A material Book 
in an immaterial world! How absurd. The 
phrase, however, has its significance ; a significance 
that could not be portrayed otherwise to mortal 
man. What does it mean? It refers, of course, 
to the Judgment. It is the evidence accumulated 
through this probationary life by which ultimately 
we shall be justified or condemned. It stands for 
determinative self-collected testimony. 

Some years ago I walked through the Insane 
Asylum at Verdun in the Province of Quebec. 
There was an inmate there who told me that he 
had been dead ten times. Upon the last occasion, 



THE OPENED BOOKS 



89 



immediately succeeding his demise, lie was ushered 
into the presence of the Eecording Angel. A Book 
was lying upon the bejewelled table. "Mr. Smith/' 
said the Angel, "you have been responsible for 
much evil." The man protested his innocence ; he 
asserted that he had been "a good living man", 
doing unto others as he would that others should 
do unto him. The Book was opened, and the Angel 
said, "read the record of your transgressions." 
The man read, and there was a detailed account of 
his sins written in his own handwriting. The poor 
lunatic, you see, reached the root of the matter. 
It was a case of self-collected testimony. 

"The Books were opened." What are these 
Books j filled in by ourselves? (1) There is the 
Book of Memory: Memory is a wonderful, inde- 
finable, and miracle-wrought function of person- 
ality, artificial and treacherous, dependent upon 
complex conditions. It is the servant of our wills, 
and yet their master. It fails us when we need it 
most, and it oftentimes tortures us when we would 
desire the past to be drowned in the sea of oblivion. 
There is a peculiar theory abroad at the present 
time about memory. It is said by psychologists of 
note that we are possessed of a dual consciousness. 
There is the conscious, or empirical self, the self 
of every-day activities, and there is the subcon- 
scious, or subjective self beneath the surface of 
immediate consciousness which carries on the me- 



90 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



chanical operations of the body such as the beat- 
ing of the heart, the circulation of the blood, and 
the expansion of the lungs. This subconscious self 
is the seat of memory. It contains and retains all 
our submerged knowledge; all the impressions of 
our personal past, and the recollections of bygone 
days. What we are aware of at any moment is a 
millioneth part of what we really know. All that 
we are not thinking of is reserved in the subcon- 
scious self to come to the surface as opportunity 
dictates. The latest belief about this subconscious 
self is that it is the soul. There is much to fortify 
this idea, such as the superior morality of the sub- 
conscious self under hypnotic influence to the reg- 
ular workings of the conscious self. The argument, 
then, shines clear. Memory is part of the sub- 
liminal, or subjective self — the subliminal self is 
the soul — the soul is immortal — therefore, the sub- 
liminal self with its memory endures for the ever- 
lasting to-morrow as well as for the transitory 
to-day. This memory, when we cast aside the 
garments of mortality, will flood our spirit as 
never before, because it will be the only personality 
of which we are possessed. Our life's course will 
be inscribed before our eyes, and every trifling 
incident of our personal history will be graven 
indelibly upon the walls of memory. Out of our- 
selves will pass the everlasting sentence of happi- 
ness or despair. 



THE OPENED BOOKS 



91 



There is another remarkable thing about mem- 
ory. We hear the aged recount the scenes of their 
lives in minutest detail. They recall every trivial 
incident, even to the date of the occurrence, the 
state of the weather, the color of dress, and the 
inflexion of language. We, in our youth, or early 
maturity, wonder as we listen. We find it difficult 
to remember even the importunate happenings of 
the past decade. It is a psychological fact that as 
people grow older memory becomes possessed of a 
graphic realism not duplicated up to the age of 
three score years and ten. The subconscious self 
comes uppermost. The logical supposition, then, 
is this — if memory close to the period of natural 
death is enlightened, after death, memory, which 
is indestructible, shall be cleared of all impediment. 

Memory is one of the Books in that small-sized 
library of ours which shall judge us at the last. 
Let us then beware of what we are storing our 
memory with, of what we are writing for all time 
in that Book. Good impressions shall bear us in 
good stead, wicked sentences shall shine forth in 
indelible ink forever. What horrible reading we 
have got there already ! Ill-temper, impurity, dis- 
honesty, slander, unneighborliness. We must set 
to work at once to remedy matters. We may not 
erase that which has been written, but we may 
strive to balance and outweigh evil with good. 
The worst kind of hell may, for all we know, 



92 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



consist in an eternal recollection of wickedness. 
Heaven may find its fullest expression in an 
eternal remembrance of virtue. 

(2) There is the Book of Conscience: Con- 
science is a much-disputed term. The theory of 
conscience ranges from that of the evolutionist, 
that in the process of development through the 
ages we have learned by experience what is injur- 
ious and what is beneficial to our well-being, and 
so have inherited instinctive tendencies, through 
the belief of the altruist, that to do wrong brings 
pain, and to do right brings happiness, up to the 
Christian conviction, that conscience is the cate- 
gorical imperative of God warning, and advising 
us to do right in spite of bodily misfortune and 
distress. As recipients of the revelation of the 
Christ we believe conscience in itself to be absolute ; 
that it is only relative in relation to ourselves, and 
the present conception of morality. Eight is ever- 
lastingly right, and wrong is everlastingly wrong. 

The trouble is that we are prone to drug con- 
science. Many people have the morphine habit 
in connection with conscience. The conscience sur- 
face is pricked all over with injections, and pre- 
sents a deplorable sight to the practiced eye. We 
have a social conscience ; we have a club conscience ; 
we have a Sunday and a Monday conscience; we 
have a business conscience; we have a domestic 
conscience ; we have a man and a woman conscience • 



THE OPENED BOOKS 



93 



we have a professional conscience. We are play- 
ing fast and loose, hide and seek, with conscience 
proper. We adjust conscience to our deeds, rather 
than our deeds to conscience, and, in so doing, we 
are overcome with the exhilaration of our own in- 
genuity. The real conscience, however, is there all 
the time; it is as indestructible as God, for it is 
God. And, when the shams of earth are lifted off, 
and the clouds of time have rolled away, there, in 
the presence of the Great J udge, will be evidenced 
the true conscience, shorn of all the subterfuges of 
our worldly deliriums. We shall see ourselves as 
we really are, and we shall be known even as we 
are known. 

A solemn thought that ! "Who may abide the 
day of His coming, and who shall stand when He 
appeareth?" Respect your conscience more than 
you respect your life, for it is your life for time 
and for eternity. When it whispers take your 
shoes from off your feet, for the place wherein you 
stand is Holy Ground. The breath of God is blow- 
ing across the room, or rushing along the highways. 
Make your obeisance before conscience as you would 
before the visible Presence of Jesus Christ. Tou 
would not compose a farce upon God. Then, do 
not mock conscience. It is one of the Books, and 
a large Book, to be opened upon the day of the 
Great Assize. 

(3) There is the Book of Privilege: This is a 



94 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



bulky volume, and much that is written in it is also 
incorporated in the two previous books of memory 
and conscience, but it contains original matter of 
its own. 

We are living in a Christian country, in the 
midst of a Christian civilization. We have passed 
the days of the Ptolemies, and the Pharaohs, of 
the Caliphs and the Caesars, of the Moors and the 
Huns, of Frederick the Great and Napoleon the 
First. Upon us the light of the world is shining. 
Ancient Pagandom and modern heathendom are 
outside the pale of our individual and parochial 
boundaries. We have been admitted into the Fel- 
lowship of Christ's Body, and we know in whom 
we have believed. We are surrounded by, and are 
breathing, the atmosphere of Privilege. 

Now, privilege carries with it awe-inspiring 
responsibilities. Every increase in knowledge 
brings in its train corresponding obligations. Bet- 
ter, far better, to be without the revelation of Jesus 
in life, and the hope of J esus in death, than to be a 
professing Christian in the full radiance of the 
acknowledged gospel and fall short of the expression 
of our convictions. 

There is the chapter in the book of privilege 
about sacraments. Does it contain an account of 
Baptism, and Confirmation, and the Holy Com- 
munion systematically received ? 

There is the chapter upon church attendance. 



THE OPENED BOOKS 



95 



Are the entries numerous, and regular, or are they 
interpolated with remarks about the weather? 
With some of us there must be many blank spaces ! 

There is the chapter upon brotherliness. Is it 
illustrated with photographs of the houses of the 
poor with the figure of ourselves in bold relief 
against the dilapidated furniture ? 

How about all the chapters in the book of 
privilege? Poor reading, some of it, I warrant! 
Miserable stuff, some of it. Much "padding", 
and the "purple patches" few and far between. 
Enough to send the watchful devil to sleep in its 
wearisome monotony! 

"And the Lord said unto Moses, whosoever 
hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My 
book." We are writing in our own book, which is, 
in truth, God's book — God's book of privilege. It 
behooves us to live up to our advantages. 

These, then, are the hooks: Volume 1, Memory; 
Volume 2, Conscience; Volume 3, Privilege. 

Upon the contents of these books we shall be 
judged, aye, we shall judge ourselves. 

There is a judgment day. Shall the judge 
claim us as his children; shall He welcome us as 
His servants ? The answer depends entirely upon 
ourselves, upon the quality of the writing in each 
one of our books. 

"And I saw the dead, small and great, stand 
before God; and the boohs were opened." 



A PREGNANT SAYING 



St Mark 14:7. "Me ye have not always." 




HE pregnant saying is the word of Jesus : "Me 
ye have not always." 



The context is familiar. The Master is sitting 
at meat in the house of a prominent citizen of the 
community in which so many of His mighty deeds 
were done ; sharing in the hospitality of the hour, 
and showing himself to be thoroughly human in 
His love of convivial comradeship ; when a woman 
of notorious character, having evaded the vigilance 
of the servants of the establishment, enters the room 
unannounced, and rushing to His side breaks a box 
of precious ointment which she carries with her, 
and pours the fumous contents upon His blessed 
feet ; those feet which were ever busy in the service 
of the needy, and the dispossessed. The guests at 
the dinner are astonished, as well they might be, for 
the interruption is unconventional to a degree, and 
bewildering in its suddenness. The Disciples present 
are overcome with astonishment, and from one of 



A PREGNANT SAYING 



97 



their number there bursts forth the indignant, and 
unpremeditated protest, "What a useless and un- 
necessary waste. This ointment might have been 
sold for a large sum of money, and the proceeds 
distributed among the poor." 

What is the attitude of Jesus toward the occur- 
rence? Will He not participate in the universal 
disgust that the proprieties should be so outraged, 
and commend the utilitarian observation of His 
esteemed companion? He likes things to be done 
decently and in order; He has a sense of fitness 
never equalled by any man before or since ; He is 
"the greatest gentleman who ever drew the breath 
of life" ; and the unseemliness of the incident must 
have lacerated the sensitiveness of His quivering 
spirit. Will He not admonish the woman for an 
act which timely in itself was ill-timed in its per- 
formance ? Moreover : He loves the poor. Their 
welfare is His preeminent concern. To their alle- 
viation He has addressed Himself throughout His 
previous ministry. Will He not, then, rebuke the 
extravagance of Mary? 

Surely, His answer to the interrogation of His 
Disciple, an answer which placed the whole matter 
in its divine perspective, is in keeping with His 
originality, with that inherent capacity for surprise 
which was remarked by those who said, "never man 
spake as this man." "Leave her alone ; it is a beau- 
tiful work that she hath wrought on Me. For ye 



98 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



have the poor with you all the time; but Me ye 
have not always." 

You see the force of Christ's contention. He 
had not forgotten the poor, nor estimated super- 
ficially the value of three hundred pence as related 
to their needs ; but the poor were a lasting quantity 
and quality, and might be assisted at any time, 
whereas, because of the shortness of His stay on 
earth, if He was to be honored at all it must be now 
or never. 

The Master is here announcing a great, and a 
universal truth. He is touching upon The Relative 
Value of Opportunities. He says in effect — "the 
good is not necessarily the best, and the man who 
would do homage to the best must be far-seeing 
enough, and sufficiently brave, to rise above 
the temptation of doing reverence to the merely 
good." 

Life is possessed of more than economic aspects, 
and the spirit of generosity as exhibited under 
special circumstances is altogether beyond compu- 
tation in Dollars and Cents. 

Let us look at this principle in our own lives, 
and gather the full force of its application. 

The Poor and J esus. There are privileges that 
may be enjoyed at any time ; commonplace oppor- 
tunities that recur with the regularity of clock- 
work ; but there are other privileges that are sealed 
with a time limit— exceptional privileges that come 



A PREGNANT SAYING 



99 



seldom, and from the necessity of the case must 
be grasped immediately to be grasped at all. The 
Poor! Why; they besiege us on every side; the 
confused crying of their need oppresses us from 
the cradle to the grave; the hands with itching 
palms are forever uplifted in importunate sup- 
plication. Whenever we will we may do them 
good. But, Jesus is unique: His demands are 
exceptional demands ; His expectation for the soul 
is timed to the moment ; and our relation to Him, 
even though we abide in Him throughout the years, 
is critical in its immanency. 

What are some of our exceptional opportuni- 
ties ? (1) Opportunities of Getting Good. There 
is Sunday. We treat Sunday lightly ; do we not ? 
In the reaction from the puritanical Sunday of 
our forefathers we have come to play fast and 
loose with the sanctity of The Lord's Day. The 
fact remains, however, that Sunday is, in the soul's 
life, an exceptional opportunity. It is propor- 
tioned to the sum total of the years in the ratio 
of one to seven. We may be the better or the 
worse for the privileges which Sunday has to offer. 
It may bless us, or damn us, fifty-two times in the 
course of three hundred and sixty-five days. The 
week-days we have ever with us; but Sunday we 
have not always. The office from Monday morn- 
ing to Saturday night, and the House of God on 
Sunday. Is that too much to ask? Is that too 



100 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



much time to give, and overmuch attention to pay, 
to the God from whom all blessings flow ? 

There is Vacation Time. To all of us who 
work for a livelihood, and who employ rejoicingly 
the talents that God has given us, the season of 
vacation is short as compared with the season of 
occupation. Two, or three, or six weeks a year as 
against fifty, or forty-nine, or forty-six weeks a 
year. Work we have ever with us; but holidays 
we have not always. Is the annual vacation period 
a period of meditation as well as a period of rest ? 
Is it, in the language of Scripture, "a desert 
place"; a place where we may recreate our spir- 
itual vitality, and adjust the horizon of our relig- 
ious thought ? Does it bring us any nearer, appre- 
ciably nearer, the God of the mountain and the 
valley and the sea? "Who were you with this 
summer," said one to another. "I went away 
alone; but I came back with Jesus Christ," was 
the answer. 

There is Travel. Most of us live in one place 
most of the time. It is unusual for us to shake off 
the dust of home, and to see new scenes and faces. 
We tread the same streets from month's end to 
month's end; meet the same people; and do the 
same old things at the same old time in the same 
old way. 'Now and then, however, we board the 
train, and are shot into new environments; ex- 
changing temporarily the community for the world, 



A PREGNANT SAYING 



101 



and the familiar for the unknown. What do 
we make of these rare opportunities ? We may be 
among those w T ho would read a novel whilst the 
car in which they sit is spanning an Alpine gorge ; 
who think more of a comfortable hotel than they 
do of a brilliant sunset ; and who are forever con- 
trasting the new with the old, to the relative depre- 
ciation of the former. Locality we have ever with 
us; but the universe we have not always. It is 
demeaning to speak of dollars when romance is at 
our door, and three hundred pence is an insult 
when nature would work her wonderful work upon 
our impoverished soul ! 

Yes, week-days, and workdays, and common 
sights and common sounds, will come again; they 
are forever coming again, for they have the habit 
of return ; "the poor we have always with us" ; but 
to him, or to her, who has ears to hear every unusual 
privilege, Sunday and holiday, and travel, ring 
out the clarion reminder, "Me ye have not always." 

What are some of our exceptional opportuni- 
ties? (2) Opportunities of Doing Good. There 
is the Home. The home is, for each of us, a 
transient institution. In the home, of all places, 
it is too late to break the alabaster box of spikenard 
when the loved one is in his grave! We are apt 
to forget — as the usual day runs its usual round — 
the inestimable privilege of living in intimate com- 
munion with those men and women, boys and girls, 



102 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



whom of all men and women, boys and girls, in all 
the world we love the best ; the members of our own 
household. The husband, and the wife, and the 
children; perhaps, an aged father, and a mother 
with silvered hair; here they are, differentiated 
with us from all the world, resident under the same 
roof, participators in the same joys and sorrows, 
keepers of the same secrets, sharers of the same 
honor, or dishonor, and worshippers of the same 
household gods. We are kind to one another — 
God grant that we may never have the unavailing 
remorse, the age-long regret, of harsh and brutal 
treatment — but are we kind enough ; as kind as 
Christ; as affectionate and as tender as Jesus, Son 
of Mary ? 

It is right and natural that we should have our 
friends outside the family circle. Only through 
such relationships in the outer world may we 
achieve the stature of our personal possibilities. 
We may not deny the fact that sometimes "friends 
may be more than my brothers are to me."' But, 
the home incorporates the citadel of our heart's 
affection; it is the arena of our most sacred inti- 
macies ; and there is something awe-inspiring about 
the swiftness with which its connections may be 
sundered. The outside world we have ever with 
us ; but home we have not always. In a few years, 
or in a tragic moment, the seeming permanency of 
the home dissolves, and the love-tinged habits of 



A PREGNANT SAYING 



103 



yesterday are only seen through scalding tears. 
The faces of friends and acquaintances may be 
viewed at any time, but the well-known and dearly- 
loved faces of the fireside are not viewed forever. 
The man called by professional engagement jour- 
neys into a distant city; his heart is light, and he 
expects on his return to find things as they have 
ever been ; but he is recalled by fatal telegram, and 
when he enters the sacred precincts of the home 
his mother is resting in her last long sleep. How 
he wishes that he had "worked a good work" upon 
her whilst he had the opportunity! He would 
break the costliest alabaster box a thousand times 
for her dear sake. But now she lies with tired feet 
toward the dawn, and the lips that kissed him are 
forever cold. 



"Me ye have not always." Why, in God's 
Name, and in the Name of Love, do we take so 
long a time to learn this simple lesson? Sooner, 
or later, every home crumbles into dust ; sooner, or 
later, every intimacy blazes into ashes; sooner, or 
later, in every association, sacred and profane, we 
hold in our trembling hands only the withered 
laurels of the past, the wilted flowers of the glor- 
ious yesterdays. Why should we forget that our 
most precious privileges are ours for but an hour, 
and that life at its longest is altogether too short 



104 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



for strife, or self. Over all things human, dimly 
at first and achieving definiteness as the years go 
on, there is inscribed the word, Ichabod — the glory 
hath departed. Oh, whilst we possess our special 
privileges of giving and receiving ; e'er the golden 
bowl is broken at the fountain and the silver cord 
is loosed ; and whilst the voice still speaks that one 
day shall be silent, "let us do good unto all men; 
but especially unto them that are the household of 
Faith." The time is ever here to break our Box 
of Costly Ointment, and so to work a good work 
upon men and things; for the shades of night 
descend when we may work for men and things, at 
least particular men and special things, no more. 
"Me," whatever the "Me" may be, "ye have not 
always." 



THE PRODIGAL SON 



St. Luke 15: 11-25 

OUR Blessed Lord was essentially parabolic in 
His teaching. He employed the outward and 
familiar sign to convey the inward and spiritual 
significance. He used the common sights and ex- 
periences of life as a vast ritual through which 
the eternal ever shines. 

Of all His parables the Parable of The Prodigal 
Son is the pearl. It has the note of immortality. 
It is true for all time, true to life and character. 
It commends itself to the taste of all. As a piece of 
literature, in its majestic simplicity, in its capac- 
ity of erecting an indelible portrait upon the lens 
of the imagination, it is authoritatively stated to be 
without competition in the languages of the world. 
As an appeal to the heart of man it has been in 
the record of Christianity responsible for the con- 
version of uncounted hosts of sinners. 

This chapter, the Fifteenth of St. Luke, records 
three parables: The Lost Coin, the Lost Sheep, 



106 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



and The Lost Son. The first two represent God 
seeking the sinner. The last represents man seek- 
ing God. This is ever the process in conversion, 
be conversion instantaneous or gradual. Conver- 
sion is twofold. There is the human impulse, 
and the divine response; there is the call of God, 
and the answer of man. 

We may not analyze the phenomenon. It defies 
definition. It is rebellious of regulation. But, 
of this we may be assured — there must be the two 
elements : the coming of the creature, and the bring- 
ing of the Creator; the drawing of the Creator, 
and the compliance of the creature. 

Blindness to this fact has resulted in the great 
past severance of Protestant Christianity. If you 
take the parables of The Lost Coin and The Lost 
Sheep, and exclude The Parable of The Prodigal 
Son, you have ultra Calvinism, responsibility thrust 
solely upon the side of God. If you take the 
Parable of the Prodigal Son, and eliminate the 
parables of The Lost Coin and The Lost Sheep, 
you have ultra arminianism, the entire dependence 
rests upon man. Either attitude by itself is wrong ; 
the right attitude is only found in the union of 
the two. 

Let us seek the Spiritual Interpretation of the 
Story: We have the picture of a young man leav- 
ing home. He comes to his father with the re- 
quest, "Give me the portion of goods that belongs 



THE PRODIGAL SON 



107 



to me ; I would be gone into the world." It is a 
strange request, and significant. The son has evi- 
dently grown tired of the restraints of family 
life. He. has become envious of discipline. He 
chafes at parental control. The call of a seemingly 
wider vitality is sounding in his ears. He is weary 
of doing as he is bid, and would fain begin to do 
as he pleases. It is a familiar picture, and there 
are many who in retrospect may see the well-worn 
colors upon the canvas of their early years. 

This young man's case, however, is not only 
typical, it is exaggerated. For some time he had 
been making things unpleasant at home. His 
temper was not of the best. He was surly, self- 
opinionated, selfish. As the days pass, so far as 
affection for his father is concerned, he becomes 
a son in name only. He makes this brutal request 
— "Give me the money that belongs to me, and let 
me go." He could not even wait until the obvious 
occurred, and his father died. He is cruel in his 
impetuosity. Think of the feelings of his father ! 

Now, you will notice that the father had every 
right to refuse the request. In North America, 
when a parent dies, he ordinarily divides his wealth 
equally among his offspring. In England, in fact 
or practice, there is the law of Primogeniture — the 
eldest son receives all, or most, of his father's 
wealth. But, among the Jews it was customary 
to leave two-thirds to the elder son, and one-third 



108 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



to the younger, in families consisting of two boys. 
If> then, this father had refused his son's impor- 
tunate demand the younger son had had no legi- 
timate cause of complaint, for his one-third was 
not legally due until his father's death. 

But, the father consented, and gave to the 
boy his expected inheritance. Why did he do 
so? Surely, because, realizing the intractability 
of the boy's temperament, and appreciating the 
uselessness of continued pleading, he determined 
to let his son learn by sad experience that the way 
of the transgressor is hard. There are some youths 
who are altogether incorrigible, and the only school 
to teach them common sense is the rough Academy 
of the World. 

Nov), what, so far, is the spiritual significance 
of the story? It is the; human family epitomized. 
The younger brother is humanity, and the father 
is God. The root of sin, whatever be the forms in 
which it expresses itself, is the; wish to be; free of 
the authority of God. The source of evil is sel- 
fishness, separation from God and our fellow-men. 
In the Prodigal we have an illustration of our 
own wilful selection of destiny. When the human 
will sets itself in opposition to the divine; will, it 
says in effect, "Give me the portion of goods that 
belong to me, and let me pursue? my own prefer- 
ences." Yes; let us get beyond the literal, and 
grasp the figurative import of the parable. Only 



THE PRODIGAL SON 



109 



on the outside is it the story of an earthly child 
who outraged an earthly parent. On the inside 
it is the lasting photograph of our culpable defiance 
of the prerogatives of God. We turn our backs 
upon duty, deeming ourselves sufficient unto our- 
selves, and so we sin. We follow our own sweet 
pleasure, and so we wound inexpressibly a Loving 
Father's Heart. This transgression of the Prodigal 
is our transgression, and our cry must be "God be 
merciful unto me a sinner." 

So much for the boy at home; let us follow his 
career in the world: "He wasted his substance in 
riotous living." He went out with money in his 
pocket to have his swill of life. He possessed a 
fascinating personality. He was one of those char- 
acters who reserve all their generosities for society, 
and all their boorishness for the family circle. 
With a free hand he scatters his favors upon all 
with whom he comes in contact, and so becomes the 
center of an admiring group of companions. A 
spendthrift in the days of his affluence does not have 
to go far to seek his friends. He is a magnet for 
impecunious parasites, and gathers them from the 
four corners of his environment, even as a flame 
attracts its multitudinous moths. He is "hail 
fellow, well met," and is the subject of flattering 
attentions from other youths more celebrated for 
their excesses than for their discriminations. 
What a time he has! The wine flows freely, the 



110 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



nights are filled with revelry, and the days succeed 
each other in kaleidoscopic dissipations. 

It is the picture of the "fast" young man, the 
man about town, old or young, the man who, in 
common parlance, "sows his wild oats." There 
have been, and there are, analogous cases in every 
community, and there will be such cases until age 
comes to regard such behavior as criminal, and 
youth has decried such bestiality as detrimental in 
the production of a man. There is such a thing as 
the rose losing its fragrance, and sin vitiates both 
mind and body. A moment lost is a moment lost 
forever, and no one may look for the second time 
into the weeping face of a vanished hour. 

Now, we reach another stage. The Crisis 
comes: "And when he had spent all, there arose 
a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in 
want." The day arrived when he had squandered 
all his patrimony, when his purse was conspicuous 
for its emptiness, and, when, through the inevitable 
operation of his foolishness, he was in urgent need. 
He was bankrupt not only in pecuniary resources, 
but in health and morals as well. He was a phys- 
ical, a financial, and a spiritual wreck. It is a 
pathetic denouement, and the pathos is emphasized 
through his isolation. Where are now the friends 
of his prodigality? They have fallen away from 
him one by one. They pass him by upon the street. 
Flattery has given way to vituperative comment. 



THE PRODIGAL SON 



111 



He is openly sneered at as a short-sighted fool. 

It is always thus with the boon companions of a 
sinful past* In the days of our monetary helpless- 
ness they flee from us as they would the plague. 
When the day is fair the motes disport themselves 
in the rays of the warming sun, but when the dark- 
ness gathers, and the desolation of night descends, 
the gaudy motes are nowhere to be seen. There 
is no sadder commentary upon sin than the way in 
which its votaries wring the sinner dry, and leave 
the pauperized to shift for himself. "Bleed the 
fool, and so through the process of blood-letting 
cleave even as the leech, but when the veins are 
empty cast the corpse aside." That is the motto 
of the Devil and all his adherents. "There arose 
a mighty famine in that land." It is always so. 
Not only is the land of iniquity a far-off land, but 
it is an arid and a sterile land. There is famine 
of the heart — want of love. There is famine of 
the soul — want of peace. There is famine of the 
mind — want of hope. Love, peace, hope, we leave 
them all behind us when we deliberately forsake our 
Father's House, and journey into the distant coun- 
try of self-aggrandizement. 

This is true not merely of the "fast" young 
man, and the reckless young woman. It is true of 
all, however respectable and moral they may happen 
to be, who have turned their backs upon the urgency 
of God's Friendship, and are living in the world 



112 



THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



for the world alone. The heart hungers, the soul 
thirsts, and the hunger is for the Bread of Life, 
and the thirst is for "the living waters." There 
is a mighty famine in the land of personality. 
If we have all things, but lack the one thing need- 
ful, how much, as a question of soul arithmetic, 
have we? Nothing, aye, and less than nothing. 
A bestial life is fit for a beast, but it cannot begin 
to satisfy a man. The Far-OfF Land is ever the 
Land of Famine, and many there be who dwell 
therein. 

What did the Prodigal do? "He went and 
joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, 
and he sent him into his fields to feed swine." 
A Jew feeding swine ! The degradation is incon- 
ceivable to a Gentile mind. Is this our fine young 
man, the open-handed gentleman, the giddy dis- 
tributor of another's wealth, whose advent into the 
community had created such a stir in the circles 
of polite society, dazzling the men, and fluttering 
the maidens' hearts ? Romance is over, and the 
hideous facts appear. The froth has been blown 
from the wine cup, and the bottom of the chalice 
of iniquity shines clear. The tinsel has been torn 
to shreds, and the gilt reveals its tawdriness. The 
cesspool gives up its dead, and upon its top there 
floats harlotry, strangled innocence, disillusion- 
ment, glaring memories, and vanished oppor- 
tunities. 



THE PRODIGAL SON 



113 



Have you ever fed the swine ? Have you ever 
sounded the deeps of a life lived apart from God ? 
Have you measured the Valley of Pleasure, and 
reached the limits of sensual gratification? If 
so, then, you realize that with this young man the 
time of reaction had come. The father's policy, 
the only policy possible under the circumstances, 
had reached its justification, and the Prodigal is 
at last aware of the fact that "the wages of sin 
is death. " 

So we come to the sons repentance, and his 
return: "But when he came to himself he said." 
Then he had been beside himself before ? His con- 
duct had been irrational and insane ? It had not 
been natural for him to sow his wild oats ? It had 
not been normal for the youth to have his fling? 
He said to himself, "I have been a fool, a madman. 
I had the best of homes, the best of fathers, and I 
forfeited happiness for a chimera, peace for the 
slough of sensuality. Why, there are hirelings in 
my father's house who are better off than I am, 
and who would not for the world change their 
security of service for my profligate liberty. I 
will arise and go to my father, and say unto him, 
Father I have sinned against heaven and before 
thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son ; 
make me as one of thy hired servants." 

Now, notice that the mere resolution did not 
save the unhappy man. The way to hell may be 



114 



THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



paved with good resolutions. We have made a 
thousand good resolutions — where are they now? 
A man is not redeemed by a good resolution. Action 
alone spells redemption. The Prodigal did not 
think to himself, "some day I will present myself 
at the homestead and take them all by surprise." 
He did not commune within himself thus, "I must 
wait until I exchange these rags for more becoming 
raiment, else my fastidious brother will laugh at 
me." There was no some day; there was no wait- 
ing. It was "I will arise and go/' and he went. 

Notice further the words, "I have sinned." 
'No puppy phrases now. ISJot, "I have been fast" 
— "I have been a trifle wild." He is absolutely 
frank, and indulges in no euphemisms. "Father, 
I have sinned". This, is ever the mark of 
sincere repentance. We speak no longer of "pre- 
destination," of "heredity," of "environment," of 
"human nature." We do not shift the responsi- 
bility upon others. We call a spade a spade, and 
lay the deformity at our own door. There is no 
juggling with anaemic phrases. We cry from the 
depths of a heart convinced, and convicted, "I have 
sinned." The true penitent places the blame upon 
self alone. "I have sinned against heaven and 
before thee." The consciousness of guilt against 
God is placed first, the consciousness of guilt against 
the earthly parent comes last. This is the right 
order. All sin is sin against God. I sin against my 



THE PRODIGAL SON 



115 



neighbor — that is sin against God. I sin against 
myself — that is sin against God. I am drunken, I 
am impure, I am envious, I am dishonest, I am 
selfish. Then against God I am drunken, impure, 
envious, dishonest, selfish. Let there be no mis- 
conception here. The first four and the last six 
of the Ten Commandments are bound indissolubly 
together. 

"And he arose, and came to his father/' How 
was he received ? He did not deserve so much as a 
servant's place. He had broken his father's heart, 
and well night brought down his gray hairs in sor- 
row to the grave. The father had discharged his 
obligation when at his son's request he had divided 
with him his inheritance. 

But there is one thing that we may count upon 
— there is one thing we may bank upon — and that 
is a father's heart. 

How gracious was the welcome : "But when he 
was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and 
had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and 
kissed him." — "Bring forth the best robe, and put 
it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on 
his feet, and bring hither the fatted calf and kill 
it ; and let us eat, and be merry ; for this my son was 
dead and is alive again; was lost and is found. 
And they began to be merry." 

Verily, "The love of God is broader than the 
measure of man's mind, and the heart of the 



116 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 

Eternal is most wonderfully kind." Verily, 
"There is more joy among the angels of God over 
one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and 
nine just persons who need no repentance." 

The Prodigal is "safe home at last." May such 
safety, for time and for eternity, be ours in the 
Arms of God. 



A PATRIOTIC SERMON ON 
THE PILGRIM FATHERS 



Joshua 24:2. "Your Fathers." 

HE Golden Age is still before us. It is, con- 



* sciously or unconsciously, the great attain- 
ment toward which as individuals and as nations 
we persistently, and forever strive. 
"We are living, we are dwelling, in a grand and awful 



In an age on ages telling to be living is sublime." 
The greatest, however, is yet to be, and the lodestar 
of all human effort shines as a beacon light in the 
firmament of our present darkness. The Golden 
Age, when Christ shall reign from the rivers to the 
ends of the earth, is still before us. 

Obsessed with the future, however, there is a 
duty which we owe to the past, and it is only 
through our loyalty to that duty that the future in 
its fulness may ultimately be achieved. For the 
past, in its virtues, in its conquests, in its garnered 
fruitage, in its wealth of thought, and its richness 




time; 



118 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



of experience, is a necessary equipment for the 
tasks of to-day, and an essential preparation for 
the apocalypse of to-morrow. 

Blessed is that Nation, whether Hebrew or 
American, that has great men for its ancestors, 
whose first pages are charged with interest, and 
whose Fathers were men of God. The history of 
such a Nation will send a thrill of inspiration 
through the body politic from age to age, and 
serve to guard the liberties, the principles, and the 
faith of unending generations. 

It is well, then, at such a time as this, when 
Americanism would come into its own, and come 
into its own in relation to its obligations to human- 
ity, that we should run back in thought, and famil- 
iarize ourselves with the nobility of character and 
resolve of those whom we may justly account the 
Fathers of our Country. 

It has been said that in its possession of noble 
ancestry the American Republic is like the Com- 
monwealth of Israel. Israel has Abraham, who 
left his native land to found a nation for God's holy 
purposes. So America has the Pilgrim Fathers, 
who left their native land for precisely the same 
purpose. They took possession of this continent 
for us, and they sowed the seed which has fruited 
into the boasted institutions of our well-loved 
Country. They left us a free Church, and a free 
State, and a system of free schools. They left us 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS 



119 



the bejewelled principle which we have more or 
less incarnated in working form : All men are equal 
before the law. The glory of our Nation to-day is, 
as it were, the Oak Tree which has sprung from 
the acorn which they planted. 

"Your Fathers/' the Pilgrim Fathers ! Let us 
glance briefly at their story, and apply some of the 
lessons that issue therefrom to the needs and neces- 
sities of the present day : 

The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock on the 
21st of December, in the year 1620. To know 
why they landed there, or anywhere, we must go 
back and familiarize ourselves with certain his- 
torical facts. Henry the Eighth, as we all know, 
threw off his allegiance to the Roman Pontiff, and 
constituted himself the head of the Church in 
his own land. His motives, of course, were con- 
temptible — at any rate his ostensible motives — for 
they were impelled by the fact that the Pope re- 
fused to sanction his desired divorce ; but the step, 
however bad, was overruled for good, and his breach 
with Pome was the starting point of better things 
for England and for the world. Queen Mary 
took the English Church back into allegiance 
with Rome, but after her short-lived ascendency 
Queen Elizabeth broke again with all foreign 
domination, and made the Church of England free. 
Elizabeth was a religious tyrant. She made her- 
self supreme head of the Church, and passed laws 



120 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



to the effect that all people should conform to her 
way of religious thinking. We might say that she 
established censorship over the opinions of her sub- 
jects, and constituted herself Sovereign over the 
English conscience. Taking advantage of her po- 
sition she determined to create religious uniform- 
ity. 

It is here that the Pilgrims come in, They 
could not, and they would not, conform to religious 
uniformity. Their reasons, or principles, were 
threefold. (1) Christ is the sole Head of the 
Church, and it is presumption and usurpation for 
any man or woman, for any human being, to claim 
to be head of the Church, or to dictate the Creed, 
or prescribe the policy of the Church. (2) The 
Bible is the sole rule of faith and practice. All 
the Ordinances, as well as all the ornaments of the 
Church, must have divine sanction, and literal war- 
rant in the Word of God. (3) The Church is an 
independent institution, ruled by the people under 
God. An Established Church in the technical 
sense is a violation of the truth. 

Believing all this, the Pilgrims perforce with- 
drew from the fellowship of the Established Church 
of England. They organized churches of their 
own; churches where they preached the Truth as 
they understood it. The result of this withdrawal 
was persecution by the reigning powers in the 
Church, and persecution by the civil government 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS 



121 



of England. Matters became so unbearable, even 
reaching to the execution of three men, that many 
individuals, and whole congregations, fled to Hol- 
land, where religious liberty was assured for all. 

Now the story narrows itself, and the fortunes 
of one congregation claim our attention exclusively. 
This congregation was known as the Mayflower 
church, and it was organized, and began its life 
in Scrooby, Nottinghamshire. In this church 
were men destined to be famous in the Plymouth 
Colony. There was William Brewster, the Elder, 
and the leader of finance. There were his children, 
Patience, and Fear, and Love, and Wrestling — 
good Bunyan names! There was William Brad- 
ford, the future historian of the church, and Gov- 
ernor of Plymouth Colony. Under persecution, 
this congregation retired first to Amsterdam, and 
thence to Leyden, where it remained some twelve 
years. After this there came the embarkation for 
America. This step was undertaken for the fol- 
lowing reasons : (1) There was no room for growth 
in Holland, and there was the well-founded fear 
that the whole enterprise would come to nothing. 
(2) The members of the congregation were anxious 
about their children. The Sabbath Day was not 
reverenced at Leyden, and there was the danger 
that the young people should become corrupted in 
a godless environment. (3) There was the mis- 
sionary impulse; the burning desire to make the 



122 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



Gospel known in remote parts of the earth. Actu- 
ated by these reasons the congregation sailed event- 
ually from Plymouth in the good Ship Mayflower 
for the distant shores of America. The passenger 
list comprised one hundred and two souls. A small 
stock to give birth to the multitudinous M ay flow- 
er i an s of to-day ! 

Just imagine what that passage of more than 
nine weeks must have meant, with all its hard- 
ships, and wanderings, for men, and women, and 
children. The final landing was made, of course, 
on the famous rock, and not a large rock at that, 
which they called Plymouth, in honor of the Eng- 
lish port from whence they had sailed. Moreover, 
the sufferings of the exiles were but well begun 
when they set foot upon the rugged headlands of 
the Atlantic. Sickness, and hunger, and cold, and 
perils from savages were daily experiences borne 
with true Christian fortitude. Half of the Colony 
died during the first year. Like the heroes of olden 
time, however, they held on, and committed them- 
selves and their ways to the God who careth for 
His children who care over much for Him. Ulti- 
mately a better future opened, and there began the 
building of the church, and the building of the 
schoolhouse, and the building of homes. A life 
commenced which opened and broadened until Ply- 
mouth Colony found confederation in the confed- 
eration of the Colonies, and the confederation of 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS 



123 



the Colonies transformed itself into the Republic. 

Now, what are some of the lessons from the 
Pilgrim Fathers that we may read and apply ? 

(1) To he great as a people, and to solve our 
national difficulties as they ought to he solved, we 
must have something of the Pilgrims' loyalty to 
the Bible: The Pilgrims gathered their principles 
from the Word of God ; not from some metaphys- 
ical pronouncement issued from the pen of some 
pragmatical Philosopher. It is the Truth that 
makes men free, and they discovered that liberating 
truth in the Library that stretches from Genesis to 
Revelation. 

Milton was right when he said, "The Bible 
doth more clearly teach the solid rules of civil 
government than all the eloquence of Greece or 
Rome. 5 ' "There is no Book like the Bible/' says 
Dr. Gregg, "to inspire liberty. It has inspired 
all the liberty that has found embodiment in our 
national life. It struck Plymouth Rock, and 
immediately that rock became our American 
Horeb to send forth throughout the generations a 
perpetual stream of blessing. It was the Bible 
that inspired the heroes of '76. It was the Bible 
that inspired Patrick Henry. His words, 'Give 
me liberty, or give me death,' were not original 
with himself. The sentiment was a Bible senti- 
ment. Solomon expressed it in substance when 
he said, 'I praise the dead who are already dead, 



124 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



and who have escaped human woe, more than ye 
living, who are miserably alive.' Liberty Loving 
Men have ever been Bible Loving Men. The 
Lollards in England, the adherents of Luther in 
Germany, the followers of Knox in Scotland, the 
Huguenots of France, the friends of Zwingli in 
Switzerland, Cromwell and his Ironsides — all these 
were lovers of the Bible, and all these were heroes 
in liberty's cause." Only as we are true to the 
Book of the Pilgrims, the Bible, may we expect to 
be true to, and to carry on, the Pilgrim's Cause ; 
for the atmosphere of the Pilgrims' Book is to be 
found in our National Constitution, in the Declar- 
ation of Independence, and finally in the crown- 
ing glory of our Nation— the Emancipation 
Proclamation. 

If we would do the right thing as men ; if we 
would do the right thing as citizens ; if we would 
be of that deposit force which is going to impel 
America to do the right thing as a Nation at the 
present time — we must be readers of, and not 
merely readers of but experts in the Word of God. 

(2) To he great as a people we must face our 
difficulties with the heroism and self-sacrifice with 
which the Pilgrim Fathers faced the difficulties of 
their day and generation: To be true to our 
Country, in foul weather as well as in fair, is the 
best manner in which we may honor the memory 
of the Fathers of our Country. The best patriot 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS 



125 



is ever he who gives the best manhood to his 
Country. What we need preeminently to-day is 
grand men for a great hour. The United States 
calls at this time of crisis for hundreds and thou- 
sands and millions of men — real men, true men, 
men of heart as well as of mind, above all men of 
conscience and of character. There is no long and 
dreary ocean's voyage before us ; there is no endur- 
ance of cold and of hunger, of unrestricted sickness 
and overwhelming death, to be borne; there is no 
pioneer work of a material kind to be achieved; 
but there are difficulties bounding us upon every 
side; difficulties peculiar to our present circum- 
stances as a nation. There is treason abroad. Yes ; 
Treason. There is the treason of a cowardly and 
self-seeking prosperity, which keeps still silence, 
or which prates in mellifluous polysyllables, when 
patriotism and honor, and the destruction of our 
fellow citizens, call for vindication in the arena 
of the politics of the world. There is such a thing 
as the traitor in time of peace as well as the traitor 
in time of war, and such a traitor should be shot 
— shot with the cannon of universal public indig- 
nation, and execration. He deserves little consid- 
eration of mercy, and every consideration of ful- 
some justice. He should at least be blackballed, 
and be buried with becoming notoriety in everlast- 
ing oblivion. 

From the Pilgrim Fathers we learn this lesson, 



126 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



and it is written in letters of gold so that all may 
see; For the furtherance of the allied cause of 
God and of our Country we must have manhood. 
Men are needed, and men are needed more than 
principles. Character is demanded, and character 
even more than creed. Only so may we, in homely 
parlance, "play the game," and ceasing from ex- 
uberant speech go in, go in fathoms deep, for deeds. 

Let us as Americans, as followers of our 
Fathers, band around the Bible and our manhood, 
that honoring the right, the right may ever honor 
us; and with that honor which is the respect of 
our fellow men, and the commendation of our God. 



A PATRIOTIC SERMON ON 
GEORGE WASHINGTON 

Acts 1 1 : 24. "For he was a good man, and full of the 
Holy Ghost, and of faith." 

SUCH was George Washington, the Father of 
our Republic, the Immortal Statesman whose 
birthday we commemorate this week. His genius 
was preeminently the genius of goodness. He was 
not a brilliant man, as we understand the word 
brilliant ; he was not possessed of mental greatness, 
as we account mental greatness in the giant minds 
of history ; be was a man of exceptional character 
— a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of 
faith. 

Let us glance briefly at his life, and consider 
some of the obvious lessons that flow therefrom. 

George Washington came into life in what we 
might call plain fashion, and his boyhood days 
were conspicuous for their lack of superior advan- 
tages. His early education was similar to that of 



128 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



Abraham Lincoln; the only other American up to 
the present time who is able to stand life size beside 
him and not suffer in the comparison. Washing- 
ton never saw the inside of a university, save as a 
visitor, and his schooling was achieved at a low 
grade private school, taught by the parish sexton. 
Deprived of school advantages, however, he assid- 
uously trained himself outside of school. He 
literally drilled himself in self-control ; in regular- 
ity of occupation; in the gentle art of politeness; 
and in the fear of God. He self-consciously laid 
down rules and regulations to guide him in the 
avoidance of all that would offend the most refined 
taste, and appreciated the fact that decorum and 
politeness are among the greatest influences where- 
by a man of self-respect may expect to be respected 
by his fellow men. 

At the age of seventeen Washington earned his 
livelihood as a surveyor of public lands. In this 
vocation he continued for three years. This proved 
to be a wholesome discipline, for at the age of 
twenty he stood forth six feet two inches in height, 
broad shouldered, and full-chested, physically every 
whit a man. It also made him eminently practical ; 
familiarized him with fatigue and exposure; and 
laid the foundations of his future soldier-like qual- 
ities. At the conclusion of this period he took a 
commission from the colony of Virginia, and par- 
ticipated in the French and Indian Wars. After 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



129 



this lie went with his brother to the West Indies. 
In the West Indies his brother died, and Washing- 
ton came into possession of Mount Vernon. When 
twenty-seven years old Washington married a 
charming and a wealthy widow; a love match, in 
which money just happened to be thrown in — 
money that stood him in good stead in Revolu- 
tionary Times, and enabled him the better to serve 
his country. 

At the age of forty-two he became a member 
of the first general Congress of the Colonies, and 
less than three years later he was, through the 
influence of John Adams, selected as Commander- 
in-chief of the American forces. He remained at 
the head of the Army for seven years, during 
which time his foot never once stepped across the 
threshold of his own home. The history of these 
seven years is familiar to you all ; they were years 
of intense interest; years of the travailing of a 
Nation born from the womb of another Nation; 
and years which ranged from the raising of the 
siege of Boston to the surrender of the British 
Army at Torktown. 

Washington's services during the Revolution 
illustrate his character, and set forth his peculiar 
endowments. He was persistently active; full of 
untiring energy; possessed of extraordinary ex- 
ecutive ability; but he was also conspicuous for 
his passive virtues. In the long run it was his 



130 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



ownership of these virtues that won the day; for 
his conquest of the British was achieved in the 
final estimate through unadulterated patience, and 
strategy of retreat, until he wore down the aggres- 
siveness and resistance of his enemies by his long 
continuance. 

When the War was over, Washington's work 
was by no means done. Many more years of 
patriotic service were demanded of him by his 
Country. The most perilous period in the history 
of the United States was the four years subsequent 
to the Revolution. This era has been called by 
John Fiske, "the critical era" ; and a critical era 
it undoubtedly was. During the War the Nation 
had been united in a common purpose, a purpose 
calling for the obliteration of all factional politics ; 
but when the War was over, and the danger from 
the outside had been summarily and successfully 
dealt with, there loomed a danger from within, and 
each State became jealous of every other State, and 
sought not its neighbor's profit, but its own. There 
was also great financial distress. There was civil 
war in North Carolina, and there was revolt in 
Pennsylvania. The demand became paramount 
for a permanent consolidation of all the territories 
of the Union ; for better Articles of confederation ; 
and for a wider and more representative Central 
Government. This demand, or these series of de- 
mands, originated the convention which framed the 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



131 



Constitution, and of this Convention George Wash- 
ington was Chairman. The Constitution framed 
and adopted, Washington became the first Presi- 
dent. We learn from irrefutable sources that in 
this connection the office sought the man — the man 
did not seek the office. We may say, in truth, that 
every position which Washington held in the pub- 
lic service was forced upon him. He accepted 
governmental offices only from a sense of duty, and 
out of the conscientious desire to serve his country. 

Having served as President for eight years, the 
wise limit of presidential rule for any man, Wash- 
ington retired to the privacy of his home at Mount 
Vernon, and lived in quietness and peace till death 
called him to the larger life of Eternity — preserved 
by God for His faithful servants who have pro- 
moted, in large measure or in small, the Kingdom 
of God among the children of men. When he died 
all America mourned for him, and the Nations of 
the earth joined with America in the regret that 
a great man had fallen in Israel. The flags of 
France were craped, and even the flags of Great 
Britain and her remaining Colonies floated at half 
mast — for, as Goldwin Smith has said, "England 
felt that Washington had fought against the Gov- 
ernment of George the Third, and not against 
England." 

Such, in brief, is our Washington. This week 
we stand in his undying presence, and feel his 



132 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



power. He was a good man, and full of the Holy 
Ghost, and of faith, and this [Nation is a great 
Nation largely because of him. 

Let us hear the voice of George Washington 
to-day. What does he say to us upon whom these 
present ends of the world have come; who are face 
to face with a crisis approximating the crisis 
through which he so skilfully steered the Ship of 
State ? Let us read and apply some of the lessons 
of his life, and apply them as in the light of the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

It seems to me that Washington says three 
things ; three things which if we heed, and follow, 
will have their part in the making of the great 
Ultimate America of the future. 

(1) Americans, Give Your Country a True 
Manhood: A Nation is the making place of men; 
"show us your man/' land cries to land; and as 
our manhood is strong so, and only so, may our 
Country be four-square to all the winds that blow. 
Our character as a people is the character of our 
separate citizens. The individual is the solution 
of all our problems, and the secret of all our great- 
ness. Society must be regenerated; yes, but the 
only way to regenerate society is by regenerating 
the atoms of society. Our patriotism may never 
rise higher than our morals, and it will ever sink 
to the level of our immorality. 

The vital question, then, is: What Are You? 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



133 



A man of truth; a sober man; an honest man; a 
man who finds his sufficiency of life in the suf- 
ficiency which comes of adherence to the highest 
motives and the noblest principles? Show me a 
nation of such men, and I will show you a mag- 
nificent Nation, a Nation of civil and religious 
liberties, and a Nation whose career is a career of 
continued exaltation. We must have good men; 
not necessarily clever men, nor smart men, for 
clever and smart men are innately stupid and dull, 
but good men; men like Washington who showed 
for all time that goodness, not intellect, is the 
equivalent of greatness. The genius of character 
— that is what we need above all else. 

"God give us men ! A time like this demands 
Clean minds, pure hearts, true faith, and ready hands." 

Yes; you must serve your Country, and in no 
other way may you serve your Country so well as 
by being good — just good. 

(2) The Voice of Washington says, Be Intense 
Americans: We must see to it that there is no 
division of loyalty upon the part of our citizens. 
Of the foreign-born, and of those of foreign par- 
entage, we must expect, if not patriotism, at least 
loyalty. We have opened the gates of our Nation 
to all the peoples of the world, and we have the 
right to expect that those whom we have welcomed 
shall welcome us in return, and pay due deference 



134 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



to our laws and ideals. Only upon such conditions 
may we continue to harbor them, and give them 
all that life holds most dear, security of life and 
limb, and the privilege of equal opportunity. It is 
only equitable and of the justice of things that 
those who are participators in our generous hos- 
pitality should, if they determine to remain among 
us, become naturalized citizens of our Republic, 
and that in the meantime they should behave them- 
selves as courteous guests in the banqueting house 
of a courteous host. We have waved the flag of 
our invitation to strangers on the understanding 
that they are to become friends, and more than 
friends — fellow-citizens, and equal sharers in a 
common burden. We have invited these people to 
work out with us Americanism, and Americanism 
of the most undiluted type. The oath of natural- 
ization is neither more nor less than an oath of 
purgation whereby all foreign allegiance is forever 
renounced. The man who takes it in its spirit is 
born into a new civil life. By propaganda and, if 
needs be, by ramified restriction, we must see to 
it that that oath is kept in purpose as well as in 
intent. "The Stars and Stripes must be the one 
flag for all, and there must be one sovereign for 
all — the will of the people exercised according to 
the letter and the spirit of the National Constitu- 
tion." 

Finally: The Voice of Washington says that 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



135 



America Must, Whatever the Sacrifice, Hold Her 
Leadership Among the Nations of the Earth: We 
are faced with many problems. There is the 
money problem, one of our greatest problems, and 
withal one of our greatest dangers; there is the 
race problem, and the educational problem, and the 
problem of our foreign policy ; and all these prob- 
lems must be solved not merely in relation to 
ourselves, but in relation to humanity. The op- 
pressed in all the countries of the world, espe- 
cially in this era of unprecedented oppression, are 
looking toward America for light ; for sympathetic 
help ; and for guidance in conduct and diplomacy. 
In Nineteen Hundred and Seventeen we have an 
extraordinary mission to the universe. The eyes of 
the whole world, civilized and uncivilized, Christian 
and pagan, are focussed upon our every move, and 
our national decisions as related to other nations 
are the subject of hourly commendation or con- 
demnation in all the newspapers and parliaments 
of the world. 

Shall we be true to the trust which is being 
imposed in us ? Shall we rise to the greatness, 
perchance the greatness of unprecedented sacrifice, 
which is expected of our favored and influential 
position among the governments of the hemi- 
spheres ? God grant that we may — and abundantly 
so. Then, 



THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



"Sail on, O Ship of State! 

Sail on, O Union, strong and great! 
Humanity, with all its fears, 
With all its hopes of future years, 

Is hanging breathless on thy fate." 



A SERMON UPON UNUSUAL METHODS * 



St. Mark 2 : 4. "And when they could not come nigh 
unto Him for the press, they uncovered the roof." 

THE incident is familiar to all readers of the 
New Testament. It is Capernaum, the 
central city of Christ's Galilean ministry. Jesus 
is staying in the house of a friend. As soon as the 
inhabitants are aware of His presence they leave 
their businesses, and domestic duties, and flock to 
hear Him. 

In the community there is a palsied man, bed- 
ridden for many years, and accepting his disability 
as a permanent condition. His neighbors tell him 
of the miracle worker in their midst; enumerat- 
ing a long list of cures effected by His magic touch. 
At first the sick man is incredulous, but, soon, 
the power of suggestion does its work. He gives 
a reluctant consent to be brought into contact with 
Jesus. His neighbors, three on one side, and three 

* This sermon is based upon a study by Dr. Joseph Parker, 



138 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



on another side, and one at either end, lift the bed 
with its human freight bodily from the floor, and, 
passing through the door of the house, traverse, 
amid much curiosity, the narrow streets of the 
town until they come to the house where Jesus is. 
Here they are met with a disappointment—the 
crowd is so dense that even the sidewalk is thronged 
with people unable to gain an entrance. The 
palsied man expostulates, and desires to be con- 
veyed back to his home; but his attendants will 
not hear of such a course, and, after consultation, 
they take the sufferer up the steps, which were al- 
ways to be found on the outside walls of an eastern 
house, and, drawing aside the canvas which served 
as a roof, they lower their burden through the 
opening to the Feet of Christ. And, The Master 
sees the man, and compelled by his faith, and the 
faith of his companions, grants the craved for 
blessing, and the invalid is restored to health. 

There are many lessons in the well-known 
story ; but the idea which I desire to elaborate to-day 
is this : 2/ you want to get close to J esus, and to 
be the recipient of His bounty, unusual methods 
are as legitimate and as effective as usual methods. 
You may always achieve your ambition somehow, 
if you are in living earnest. 

(1) Do you really want to see Jesus Christ? 
I would answer that question for you in the af- 
firmative. Whatever your consciousness, or uncon- 



UNUSUAL METHODS 



139 



sciousness, of the fact you want to see and to 
know Jesus Christ more than anything else in the 
world. You are hungry for Him; you are lonely 
without Him ; and this your soul knows right well. 

But; for what purpose do you want to see 
Christ ? Everything depends upon your attitude 
to that enquiry. Christ will not answer some 
calls, however voiciferous they may happen to be. 
Herod expected to see a miracle done by Him, 
and Jesus turned into a cold, unresponsive stone; 
looked at Herod as a corpse might have looked 
at him; and answered him not a word. Do you 
want to see Him upon real, soul business ? Then, 
He will stay up all night with an earnest Nico- 
demus. He is silent to speculation; He is dumb 
to curiosity; but, to sincerity He opens the flood 
gates of His love. 

More than this: Are you prepared to take the 
roof away rather than not see Him? Are you 
ready for unusual methods, for peculiar and ec- 
centric ways, rather than be baffled in your quest 
after the Son of God? We must not, of course, 
be eccentric merely for the sake of eccentricity. 
If these men in our story had uncovered the roof 
without first going to the door, Christ would have 
rebuked them. There is an eccentricity which is 
naught else than base vulgarity. But, if we go 
to the door, and cannot gain an entrance in the 
regular way, then a door must be made, even though 



140 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



it be made through the roof. Circumstances are 
to be treated originally for the achievement of a 
worthy purpose. 

We would see and know Jesus, then; we are 
reverent in our desire; and we are prepared, if 
needs be, for extraordinary procedure. 

How may we see Him? There are many doors 
to the House of His abode. Let us try the first. 
How crowded it is ! Long bearded men fill up the 
vestibule; venerable men, with intelligence shin- 
ing in their eyes. Their bearing denotes them to be 
men of culture and refinement. We cannot pass 
through them, however, because we have not 
mastered their letters. These are the Rabbis of 
the Church, and, unless we swing with them over 
the centuries, we cannot pass that way. 

Let us try another door: It is thronged. Men 
are here with the aroma of the midnight oil upon 
their faces. They talk long and hard words; we 
never heard our mothers use such a vocabulary. 
Each word is a word of ten syllables, and requires 
a sort of verbal surgery to take it to pieces. These 
are the philosophers and metaphysicians. We can- 
not elbow our way through their company. We 
are too concrete and matter of fact, for their ab- 
stract subtleties. 

Here is another door: It is barred by a surg- 
ing multitude. We see men reasoning in high 
argument; proving and disproving; reaching con- 



UNUSUAL METHODS 



141 



elusions, and destroying suppositions. They have 
weights and scales and measures. These are the 
logicians, the argument arians, and the controver- 
sialists. They are blocking our progress. You and 
I, poor broken hearts, cannot get in there ! What 
shall we do ? Go home again ? 'No ; for we have 
come to find Jesus, and find J esus we must. 

Here is a fourth door: Once more the surging 
press. A strange crowd this ! Men are burning 
incense; ringing bells; performing ceremonies; 
and gesticulating in wierdest fashion. Who are 
these ? Why ; the ceremonialists. They have their 
cut and dried doctrines; they are sure of their 
position beyond peradventure. These are the 
ecclesiastics; men who have clerical tailors all to 
themselves. We cannot get through here; the at- 
mosphere is positively nauseating. 

Shall we give up ? No. We have come to find 
Christ, and find Him we must. What shall we do ? 

Why : We must resort to unusual ways. There 
are those who say that they would feign enter 
the House where Christ is, but that they cannot 
find their way through the rabbis, or through the 
philosophers, or through the logicians, or through 
the ecclesiastics. Shame on them. They are not 
in earnest. They would never permit a human 
friend to escape that way. 

Nicodemus found a way : It was a long day's 
waiting ; night arrived ; and the darkness took him 



142 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



as a veiled friend to the abode of the Saviour, and 
he and J esus sat up until the morning's light, and 
IsTicodemus was born again. 

Zacchaeus found a way: He was short; he 
could not see over the shoulders of the crowd; 
but he climbed up into a sycamore tree, dapper 
gentleman that he was he was not afraid of ridi- 
cule, and he saw the procession as it passed by, and 
he attracted the attention of Jesus, and that day 
salvation came to his house. 

There was a woman who found a way: She 
said, "if I may but touch the hem of His garment 
I shall be healed." She did it silently ; but Jesus 
knew, for He said, "Who hath touched Me ? Some 
finger hath taken life out of Me ; whose finger was 
it?" And the woman was made whole; for there 
is a rude touch that gets nothing, and there is a 
sensitive touch that extracts lightning from God. 
"He that hath ears to hear, let him hear" ; and he 
that hath fingers to touch, let him touch. 

Do you want to see Jesus? Then, there is a 
permissive violence. "They uncovered the roof; 
and when they had broken it up". That is the way 
to talk. These men would not let fifteen feet of 
canvas stand between them and the Healer of the 
Universe. When Christ saw their faith He said, 
"Son; thy sins be forgiven thee!" That is His 
consistent reply to earnestness. Unusual ways are 
permitted, and commended, under certain circum- 



UNUSUAL METHODS 



143 



stances. Where there is a will there is always a 
way, some way. 

This is where the Church has oftentimes gone 
wrong. The Church has its methods, and its cut 
and dried plans, and its neat way of doing things. 
The Church needs a greater breadth ; she ought to 
be turned to her multifarious uses. We must make 
the Church as wide as all temperaments; as big 
as all differing aspects of truth, and as universal 
as God. That all men may come to find Christ 
within the fold of the Church the Church must 
have its amenable roof as well as its orthodox doors ! 
The Church was made for man; not man for the 
Church. If we cannot find Christ in the accepted 
manner, then, if we never find Him we have only 
ourselves to blame. Jesus says, "I would; but 
ye would not. Te would not come unto Me that 
ye might have life." 

It is not easy to see and to know Christ. It 
means battle, and pressure, and determination, and 
personal ingenuity. "Strait is the gate, and nar- 
row is the way." The journey is over a mound 
called Calvary. "Except a man deny himself, and 
take up his cross, and follow Me, he cannot be My 
disciple." To one man Jesus said, "sell all that 
thou hast, and come." To another man, "except 
a man hate his father and his mother, he cannot 
be My disciple." To still another man, "the Son 
of Man hath not where to lay His head." 



144 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



Will you find Christ ? Then, all these unusual 
methods, and many more, all this individualism, 
are open for your expressive application. Ortho- 
doxy or heterodoxy are your avenues of approach. 
The roof is before you as a sure expedient when the 
doors are blocked. 

I set before you the gates of the Kingdom of 
God; I open them in the N"ame of Jesus Christ. 
To weary people He says, "come unto Me, and I 
will give you rest." To thirsty men He says, "if 
any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink." 

Blessed be God for His Word; for we have 
read to-day that if any man really desires to see 
and to know the Son of God, him will the Son 
of God both see and know, and heal. 



SIMON PETER AND SIMON THE TANNER. 
AN ORDINATION SERMON 



Acts 10:6. "He lodgeth with one Simon a tanner, 
whose house is by the sea-side." 

A GOOD deal is made of this man and his resi- 
dence. "It came to pass that he tarried many 
days in Joppa with one Simon a tanner." "Go 
therefore to Joppa, and call hither Simon whose 
surname is Peter, for he lodgeth in the house of 
one Simon a tanner by the sea-side." 

There are few men whose names and addresses 
are given so repeatedly and conspicuously in the 
Bible. Such detail must stand for something. 
There must be more in the matter than a super- 
ficial reading would suggest. 

What have we to do with Peter's lodging or 
with Peter's host ? Simon is dead long since, the 
house has crumbled into dust ; and Peter has long 
ago passed into celestial spheres. We would hear 
about something more important in an inspired 
book. The error is on our side. If we could grasp 



146 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



our text in the totality of its meaning and sugges- 
tion we would discover that the whole record of 
Christianity is contained in this verse. 

In order to understand this we must familiarize 
ourselves with a certain grotesque aspect of Jewish 
history ; we must come to regard Tanners with the 
eye of the ancient J ew : The attitude was this, a The 
world cannot get along without Tanners, but woe 
to that man who is a tanner." To get an old-time 
Jew to lodge with a tanner would require, so to 
speak, the combined energy of God the Father, God 
the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The Jew, as 
you know, made much of the letter, whatever he 
did with the spirit. He was intensely scrupulous, 
jealously ritualistic; he was nothing if not cere- 
monial. You remember the levitical law of mar- 
riage. If a brother died without issue, he was to 
be succeeded by his brother. That law was fixed 
and final ; but there was one exception to it. If the 
succeeding brother was a Tanner the law was sus- 
pended. We are also told by the same learned 
authorities that if a bride discovered that her hus- 
band was a Tanner, the marriage was dissolved. 
Moreover, the house of the Tanner was always at 
the east end of the town. It is significant that 
Simon's house was by the sea-side. The Jews 
pushed the Tanners out as far as possible; they 
would gladly have shoved them all into the sea. 
How inveterate must have been the prejudice 



SIMON AND SIMON 



147 



against this occupation. To get an ancient Jew 
who had never eaten anything unclean to lodge with 
a Tanner was a miracle of miracles, the supreme 
conquest of Jesus Christ. 

Now let us read our text: Simon Peter, a Jew 
of the Jews, who even if hungry would not touch 
anything unclean, who even in a dream would not 
arise and eat because the things in the descending 
sheet seemed to be unclean — he lodgeth with one 
Simon a Tanner! Everything that Christianity 
ever did is in that statement. Let that fact stand 
alone for a moment. 

You may he familiar with a picture that is 
drawn very graphically by a celebrated artist: 
He calls our attention to a banquet : A Roman ban- 
quet. The word Roman multiplies the banquet. A 
banquet that is Roman is twice a banquet. The 
hall is lofty, barbaric in splendor; the tables are 
groaning beneath their wealth of luxuries. The 
artist bids us look at the central personages around 
the board. What heads they have. What eyes. 
Into what attitudes indicative of strength and dig- 
nity they throw themselves. Every look a picture, 
every tone a language. Behold the gorgeous ban- 
quet ! 

Then the artist asks us to notice these lithe, 
silent footed figures that are gliding rather than 
walking through the corridors of the banqueting 
hall. He tells us that they are slaves. You cannot 



148 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



hear their steps. If they should happen to drop one 
of these crystal vases that they are carrying their 
owners would throw them into the horse-pond to- 
night, and not a soul in Rome would ask "what has 
become of that life". It is only a slave ; cast him 
into the pond ; a splash, a gasp, a gurgle, and the 
slave is gone. 

Here is another room in the same old Roman 
house. It is a small room, it is upstairs ; take heed 
how you ascend. There are a few people in the 
room. Surely we have seen some of these faces be- 
fore. Who is that sitting near the haughty looking 
Patrician whom we saw in the banqueting hall? 
That looks like one of those lithe, silent-footed men 
whom we saw waiting upon the dignified Romans 
whilst they ate and drank at the feast. See, the 
Lord hands the viands to the despised slave, the 
slave partakes thereof, and hands them on to an- 
other Patrician. What is this % This is the Supper 
of The Lord. What wrought this miracle ? Philos- 
ophy? A nicely calculated morality? Did some 
Seneca or Epictetus of the period work out a table 
of manners that issued in this ? Mo. This is the 
triumph of the Cross. Only Calvary could have 
constituted such an assembly. "He lodgeth in the 
house of one Simon a tanner by the sea-side." 

Here, then, and this is the point that I would 
make in this ordination service, you have the secret 
of social revolution: Here you have the only in- 



SIMON AND SIMON 



149 



strument that can work effectually for the recon- 
ciliation of classes, nationalities, and institutions. 
This gives us Christianity under the guise of a 
great Social Reformer. It testifies to the anarchiac 
dynamic of the Cross. 

Do you think, my Brothers, that the Political 
Economists will ever reconcile existing differences, 
and smooth down the human heart into a state of 
placid contentment ? Do you believe that man will 
ever be ruled from Columbus, or Washington, or 
from anywhere else ; accepting the voice of author- 
ity, and settling down into harmonic relationships, 
because some great legislative voice has pronounced 
in this direction or in that? Never. What does 
the world want ? Regeneration. What do men 
want who are separated, Tanner and Jew? They 
want an atmosphere. And the Spirit of the Lord is 
a breath, a wind, an afflatus, an inspiration ; a Per- 
sonality that rules often without words or exposi- 
tions of a literal kind. The Spirit of the Lord is 
among men as a fire, solving, cleansing, purifying. 

Christianity, then, should operate as a great 
Social Factor: The Rich Man need not be lectured 
upon his duty to the Poor. All that is needed is 
that the rich man should be converted, and he will 
instinctively see to the poor. Touch the man's 
heart, crucify him with Christ ; introduce him into 
the mystery of the Divine Love as witnessed in the 
Incarnation, and he will require no Polemics. 



150 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



My Brothers, we are working superficially, 
whatever philanthropic endeavors we may be en- 
gaged in, if we work without Christ. We are daub- 
ing the walls with untempered mortar. We are 
crying Peace, Peace, when there is no peace. We 
are the victims of compromises and concessions. 
We are in the thraldom of words and phrases. It 
is all valueless in the long run, and infinitely tir- 
ing and pathetic. "Marvel not that I say unto you 
that you must be born again'' — not painted, artis- 
tically decorated, legislated into disciplinary regu- 
lations. Christ's men are born to Him, they have 
a household air, and a household dignity. 

You see what I mean ? I call upon you to be 
Ministers of Religion, not superintendents of char- 
ities and benevolences. As Ministers of Christ you 
will not be called upon to enter the Municipal, or 
State, or Federal arena ; nor even to gloat your con- 
gregations with topical discourses upon sociological 
themes. That job is for others, experts in their 
several persuasions. Will you then be useless as 
Social Reformers and Propagandists ? Surely not. 
Christ's ministers who are true to their profession 
are the men from whom will issue all social settle- 
ments. They are the men behind the Sociological 
Gun. There are those who say, "the Episcopal Pul- 
pit should speak out more definitely upon Politics 
and Religion, upon Capital and Labor, upon Civic 
Betterment, and Charitable Reform", Not neces- 



SIMON AND SIMON 



151 



sarily so. The Pulpit will never let these things 
alone, it forever touches them by keeping its fingers 
off of them. It is not a question of manipulation, 
it is a question of regeneration. Make the tree good, 
and the fruit will look after itself ; make the heart 
right, and the hand will be its willing slave. It is 
a platitude, but a fact, you cannot reform a man 
from without, you cannot legislate him into good- 
ness, he must be somersaulted from within. 

To believe this is, of course, to accept the charge 
of visionary. There are people who can only esti- 
mate the visible, the palpable, the concrete. They 
walk through the solar system with a two-inch rule 
in their hands. Such people may be most repu- 
table. I would on no occasion hurt their feelings — 
if they have any. But such well-intentioned indi- 
viduals will never straighten out the crookedness of 
the social fabric. A man says, "No church for me 
this evening. I am going to a meeting at the city 
hall for the purpose of considering the drainage of 
the town. I am a philanthropist before I am a 
Christian." So be it, my friend, drive away, drive 
away ; get it done, get it done. It will accomplish 
a certain limited and definite amount of good. The 
earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof; and 
every main sewer properly constructed and honestly 
paid for is the Lord's. But when all is said and 
done, it is the heart that rules ; it is the Spirit that 
determines history. The Christian minister is also 



152 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



building, also purifying the town and neighbor- 
hood. His is the all-inclusive function. If men 
would only say Amen to their prayers, they would 
sweep every chimney, cleanse every drain, white- 
wash every sordid dwelling, and give every man 
space to live in. 

/ venture to assert, then, that the men who have 
the handling of the mysteries of life are the men 
who rule the destiny of the world. The Church, if 
true to herself, is in the fore-front and in the 
background of all social revolution and reforma- 
tion. The Church says : "We know, for the Lord 
has put the secret into our hearts, we know^ what 
will heal, permanently heal, every wound, and 
reconcile every difference ; the preaching of J esus 
Christ, and Him crucified." 

In the ordinary field of our regular ministry, 
in the preaching of the Word, in the administra- 
tion of the sacraments, we have our legitimate part 
in the forcing of the world's progress. The man 
who thunders forth "Do unto others as you would 
that others would do unto you' minimizes all op- 
pressions, lightens every burden, tempers all in- 
equalities. Every syllable that the Blessed Jesus 
ever uttered contains in it the pledge of social 
evolution. 

I would impress this fundamental truth upon 
you my brothers, who enter the ministry of the 
Church to-day. The spiritual is the raison d'etre 



SIMON AND SIMON 



153 



of your vocation. Your work will be to bring the 
power of an endless life to bear upon the fleeting 
concerns of the dying moment. See to it that you 
are faithful to your privilege. 

Never believe that you are the second man in 
the great process of social improvement ; and never 
show that you are the first man in the sense that 
indicates invidiousness, ambition, or foolish self- 
assertion. Let your dignity be in your subject. 
Let your power be in your inspiration. Pray with- 
out ceasing. Be men of prayer. Then the house 
of Simon the Tanner will be situated in the centre 
of the town; and Simon and Peter shall lodge 
together in amicable relationship forever. 



LIKE MASTER LIKE DISCIPLE. 
AN ORDINATION SERMON 



St. John 16: 32. "I am not alone, because the Father 
is with me." 

npHE loneliest life ever lived in the world was 
the life of Jesus Christ. That loneliness 
issued from two apparent causes: His consecra- 
tion, and His proclamation of the Truth. 

(1) His consecration: Jesus had a mission. 
He came to earth for a purpose and He was forever 
conscious of that purpose. "I am come to do the 
will of Him that sent me." "My Father worketh 
hitherto and I work." "Wist ye not that I must 
be about my Father's business?" "I am among 
you as one that serveth." That sense of consecra- 
tion pervaded His entire ministry, as the sun per- 
vades and constitutes the daylight. It was part and 
parcel with Himself. 

See how it ministered to His loneliness: As a 
child at Nazareth He was misunderstood ; He was 
a Boy unlike the boys about Him. There was an 



LIKE MASTER LIKE DISCIPLE 155 



aloofness about Him that bespoke an object nearer 
and dearer to His heart than the pertinent interests 
of the immediate moment. As a youth in the car- 
penter's shop He was a pattern of industry to His 
companions, but He worked silently and with an 
air of preoccupation that singled Him out as sepa- 
rate and estranged. This peculiarity of tempera- 
ment was expressed to the full one day. He left 
His home and His occupation to tour the land of 
Palestine as a mendicant evangelist. It was a 
departure unheard of in the quiet village among 
the hills, and His relatives and friends set out to 
lay hands upon Him, for they said, "He is beside 
Himself, He is mad." 

Then in the world at large, surrounded at first 
by multitudes and latterly by twelve selected men, 
He was a man apart ; no one thoroughly understood 
His message. He was an enigma even to His dis- 
ciples, one of whom betrayed Him, one of whom 
denied Him, and all of whom, in the hour of 
calamity, forsook Him and fled. Surely a loneli- 
ness of soul, an isolation of spirit was His, such a 
loneliness and such an isolation as only a conscious- 
ness of mission could bestow. 

(2) He was lonely because of His proclama- 
tion of the truth: He said, "I am the way, the 
truth, and the life." It was said of Him by others, 
"He spake with authority, and not as the scribes." 

Truth is never popular. It runs counter to the 



156 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



license of mankind. But the truth as preached by 
J esus was directly antagonistic to the conception of 
the age in which it was announced. It was incon- 
ceivable that the long-promised Messiah should 
appear in the tattered garments of a despised hu- 
mility; a simpering Evangelist who gave as His 
text, "Forgive your enemies." "Render unto 
Caesar the things that are Caesar's." So the record 
of the ministry of Jesus is a record of false witness 
and persecution ending in a felon's death. And, 
O, the abyssmal loneliness of it all. To have one's 
sincerest utterances exposed to a hostile criticism, 
and weighed in the scales of a purblind ecclesias- 
ticism. 

In His sense of mission, then, and in His proc- 
lamation of the truth, the life of Jesus was a life 
of superlative loneliness. 

But the compensation for this consciousness of 
isolation was found by the Master in the realized 
and abiding companionship of the Father: "I am 
not alone, for the Father is with Me." The word 
Father was ever upon the Saviour's lips. We hear 
it at the very outset of His life as a mere child: 
"My Father's business." We hear it in every ser- 
mon He preached, and in every prayer he uttered. 
We hear it at the close of His career, "Father into 
Thy hands I commend My spirit." He found the 
Father nearer than breathing, closer than hands 
and feet. 



LIKE MASTER LIKE DISCIPLE 157 



Now, my brothers who become priests to-day, all 
this in its fullest significance applies to you: 

(1) Consecration: You are here this morning 
to be set apart from your fellows for the work of 
the priesthood, to be endowed with power from on 
high for the ministry of souls. Before men and 
before God, from to-day henceforth and forever, 
you are to stand as messengers, watchmen, and 
stewards of the King of Kings. 

The loneliness of Jesus will be your ministerial 
heritage, and you will experience it in exact ratio 
to your fidelity. A minister's life is a lonely life, 
the loneliest of all lives lived upon this hospitable 
earth. Let there be no misunderstanding about 
that in your minds from the outset. 

From the point of view of the world this is true. 
The priest is a man with a mission, he is differ- 
entiated from his fellows. ~No amount of subter- 
fuge may permit the same behavior after ordination 
as before. If the individual advocates it, the world 
condemns it, and that condemnation spells the valid- 
ity of the demarcation. For the priest there may 
be no compromise between God and mammon. 
Harmful pleasures and many innocent enjoy- 
ments are forbidden for necessity's or expediency's 
sake. Friendship changes its character, conversa- 
tion alters its tone. The world will meet you with 
a cold reserve, or with a forced gaiety, as forced 
as it is unnatural. Society will accept you as a 



158 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 

necessary adjunct to its conventionalities, a portion 
of it expecting to be gratified by your operations 
on the Sabbath Day ; granting you admission into 
its homes when death is imminent, and looking for 
your specified performance at a wedding or a 
funeral ceremony, but barring you out of the inner 
sanctum of its unrestrained merriment. Men will 
curb their naturalistic outbursts when you are near, 
and vote your absence in the ordinary occasions of 
life as more satisfactory than your proximity. You 
must look forward to being used and criticized 
unmercifully, not enjoyed, to being regarded as a 
sombre necessity, not as a delectable luxury. You 
will always be the minister and the satisfied world 
will ever continue to assume with every appear- 
ance of self-complacency its unministerial attitudes. 
Your very garb is symptomatic of the non-assimi- 
lative tendencies of your profession. 

Moreover : your days and nights are dedicated. 
If you are loyal to the enthusiasm that should 
actuate a prophet your time will be utilized to the 
fullest extent and beyond the bounds of elastic 
enlargement. The priest is never off duty, his 
work is never done. There is no eight-hour day 
for him, and contrary to general belief, Sunday is 
his holiday. By the very necessity of the case then, 
you are prevented from entering the phantasma- 
goria of an average life. Because you are a man 
with a mission, from the world's side and from 



LIKE MASTER LIKE DISCIPLE 159 

your own side, a loneliness of spirit is demanded 
unparalleled in any other walk of life. You are 
consecrated and therefore perforce you are sepa- 
rated. 

(2) Truth: You are about to undertake 
solemn vows to proclaim the truth as contained in 
the Catholic creeds. If you ever find that you 
cannot preach those truths in their entirety then as 
an honest man secede from the Church which has 
enough to do to fight the world without apart from 
contending with sophistry within, to convert sin- 
ners apart from harboring disloyal sons. Your 
proclamation of the truth will gain you many 
enemies, and win for you a conceited unpopularity. 
This is peculiarly true at the present time and in 
the United States of America. There is a nebulous 
charity abroad amongst men to-day, a liberalism 
which is based not upon intelligent conviction but 
upon a good-natured indifference. It holds its 
head high in virtuous broad-mindedness, but in 
reality it is the child of ignorance or sin. Your 
attempt in your locality to give the lie to this 
specious hypocrisy may result in the crucifixion 
of yourself. 

To preach Jesus Christ as the Son of God, as 
the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, as born 
of a virgin, as raised from the dead ; to preach the 
Protestant Episcopal Church as a true branch of 
the Church Catholic ; that is a strong and old-fash- 



160 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



ioned text for the twentieth century, and it takes 
a courageous man to preach it. It means the 
opposition of TTnitarianism, Latitudinarianism, 
Christian Science, New Thought, the New Theol- 
ogy, Agnosticism, Nothingism, and above all Indif- 
ferentism. Such opposition you will assuredly 
meet with if you preach the Truth as the Church 
sees it and nothing but the truth. You must be 
prepared to be a fool for Christ's sake, and to have 
men look at you as though your intellect were 
deranged. 

But face this loneliness, and unpopularity, my 
brothers, with brave hearts, for you are about your 
Father s business and your Father is with you. 

In this, as it was with Jesus, you will find your 
all-sufficient consolation. Your relation to God is 
a personal relation. You are not tying your young 
minds to a body of doctrine, but you are placing 
your hand in the hand of a personal friend, and 
you will come to know the friend better as the years 
go on. God will be ever with you in sorrow and in 
joy, in darkness and in light; you will be His 
special care, and in Him is no variableness, neither 
shadow of turning. 

May I assure you from my own limited experi- 
ence that He will manifest Himself to you as to few 
others in the world of men, that he has prepared for 
you (in the inner circle of His friendship) such good 
things as pass the average man's understanding. 



LIKE MASTER LIKE DISCIPLE 161 



You will never be alone, for the Father will 
ever be consciously present with you. Only life 
may be the commentary upon this assurance. You 
will know Him, you will hear Him, you will feel 
Him. He will bear you up that you strike not 
your foot against a stone. Lonely ? Yes, from the 
secular standpoint, too lonely at times for utter- 
ance, but "These words have I spoken unto you 
that your joy may be full." "Be of good cheer, 
I have overcome the world." 



THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN 



St. Luke 23: 34. "Father, forgive them, for they know 
not what they do." 

THESE words are interwoven with the Story of 
Calvary. They are so familiar that with many 
of us they have ceased to exert their momentous ap- 
peal. There is an old proverb — "f amiliarity breeds 
contempt." I am not so sure that contempt is the 
prevailing attitude. Rather — "familiarity breeds 
benumbment," repetition makes us numb. The 
issue of familiarity is the insensibility of the 
commonplace. 

Let us get away from the bondage of custom, 
and see the picture of Calvary not merely as though 
we had never seen it before but as though we were 
actually present at the incident ourselves. Let us 
feel that we are jostled and pushed by the hurry- 
ing crowd. Let us hear the laughter. The laughter ! 
that is worth thinking about ; the roaring, and the 
shouting, and the self-complacent ribaldry of those 
who find in this scene of agony the triumphant 
issue, the satisfaction of perfidious scheming. Let 



THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN 163 



us see the pale faces of the women, with tears as 
rivulets streaming from their eyes; and the terri- 
fied faces of the little children. 

I want to see that Green Hill far away; as 
it was, and as it forever is, and to look at the central 
figure upon the cross, with the malefactors on either 
side. I want to see it all not as a spectator, but 
as a participator. I want to exert the will, the 
focussing power behind the imagination, and to be 
really present at the crucifixion of the Son of God. 

Over the attendant multitude, and through the 
surging conflict of tumultuous revelry, conveyed 
as by a spell of the Divine, are heard the words, 
the most gracious and pitying words of history, 
"Father, forgive them for they know not what they 
do." 

"They know not what they do." That is the 
acme of intercession; that is the climax of special 
pleading; the universal palliative of justice, ap- 
plicable to sinners of every age. We sin. Why? 
In the final analysis because we know not what we 
do. The plea is a plea of ignorance, and as such it 
holds good for all time. How many things we have 
done, which if we had known all that they signified 
we should never have attempted. We see the act, 
but not the consequences. We perform because 
of shallow thought. We behold the embarkation, 
but not the journey. We see the road in front, but 
not the bypaths, the collateral issues. Or, we see 



164 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



the inner circle, but not the widening and ever 
widening circles that touch the farther shore. In 
truth, we know not what we do. 

"Father: 9 The fatherhood of God. What is 
it? What does it mean? Is it a mere counter, 
devoid of moment and intent ? Do we understand 
anything when we say, "Our Father,'' "God is my 
Father?" Is there any influence exerted over our 
life and actions ? It was the revelation of Jesus. 
He came to tell us how to approach God in the 
love that casteth out fear, and this He did in the 
words, "When ye pray say Our Father." Father 
— how may we fill the term with heart's blood, 
and make it burn and live ? 

When we were young, "Father" had a certain 
significance. We knew what it was to call out 
Father, and expect and receive an answer. Well, 
take all the best and all the noblest and all the 
tenderest of the earthly Father; take all that as 
a basis, and expand it infinitely, and arrive at a 
conception, meagre, it is true, but so far just, of 
the Heavenly Father. 

There is a spectroscope which by recent ex- 
perimentation has shown that not merely the sun 
and the moon, but the remotest and minutest stars 
have in them elements of this earth on which our 
lot is cast. There is an intimacy, and more, a 
relationship between our planets, and all the con- 
stellations which surcharge the atmosphere. We 



THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN 165 



may reason from the one to all the others. We 
are one in that the elements of the earth are found 
to be the elements of the sun and moon and stars. 
So, in earthly fatherhood there are elements which 
are to be found in the Heavenly Fatherhood. We 
may bridge the gulf between the human and the 
divine, between the finite and the infinite, because 
the lesser is contained within the greater. 

"Father, forgive them for they know not what 
they do." Our ignorance, then, is directed against 
our Heavenly Father. We have sinned against 
Him. But how ? Is such a thing possible ? It is, 
in that the love of God the Father, the providing 
care of God the Father, the hope of God the Father 
for us, is the love, the providing care, and the am- 
bition of our earthly Father in ratio magnified. 
Let us look at the matter humanly: Your son 
treats you as though you were dead. How would 
you like it? When he has difficulties he spreads 
them broadcast between his friends and acquaint- 
ances, but never comes to you for counsel. How 
would you like it ? When he achieves success, he 
enjoys it apart from you; and, when he fails, he 
seeks reimbursement and recreation apart from 
your assistance. How would you like it ? He walks 
the mountain tops of joy, and leaves you in the 
valley beneath; and he refuses to permit you to 
be when he sins, a partner in his shame. How 
would you like it ? And does not God the Father 



166 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



care ? He is not a stone. He is not an immovable, 
insensate sphinx. He is not a block of impenetrable 
marble, devoid of sense and feeling. He has a 
Father's heart, and craves the companionship of 
His children. He has sight to give, and longs to 
bestow it. He has hearing to vouchsafe, hearing 
susceptible of the interpretation of heavenly voices, 
and yearns to bequeath it. He has forgiveness for 
your sin, quality for your success, advice for your 
perplexity, comfort profound and commensurate 
for your suffering, and asks to satisfy your de- 
ficiencies with such plenitude of consolation. In- 
deed, and in truth, when we sin, we know not what 
we do. Why, if we acted towards our earthly 
father as we act towards our Heavenly Father 
we would bring his gray hairs in sorrow to the 
grave. This is one of the widening circles of the 
consequence of sin outside our sight; the effect of 
transgression upon Our Father who is in Heaven. 
O Blessed Christ, the Ever Existent Intercessor, 
intercede for us before the Father Thine age-long 
plea, "They know not what they do." 

(2) Another circle of the consequences of our 
sins is aimed against our brethren: There is no 
such thing as individual sin; all sin is social sin. 
The individual is not an integer, he is a fraction. 
Each man is a fragment of society. Every sin 
committed by the one is bound to affect the many. 
Whatever the privacy of sin, you cannot lock sin 



THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN 167 



up, It is impossible to shut the door of the room 
of our sin, and turn the key, and leave the trans- 
gression there. Your secret sin as well as your 
public sin mars the social fabric. We are limbs, 
not bodies. We are organs, not organisms. The 
condition of the limb affects the body, and the 
health of the organ affects the organism. You may 
not commit a sin, wrap it up, conceal it as you will 
without that sin tarnishing your brethren. Scott, 
the Antarctic hero, said that he had to give more 
attention to the selection of the men who were to 
compose his expedition than to the equipment itself, 
because one queer man engendering mutiny might 
destroy the entire venture. And, if this is true in 
the less, why not in the greater? What matter 
whether poison be dropped into a gill or into a 
gallon of water, the analysist will detect it in either, 
in every drop of its contents. In New York the 
civic authorities forbid the consumption of soft 
coal, but if one were temporarily to break the law 
and let his chimney pour forth beclouding smoke, 
to that degree and extent the atmosphere of the 
metropolis would be polluted. 

There is an atmosphere in the home. One 
impure child will defile that atmosphere. There 
is an atmosphere in the club ; one vicious man will 
affect it for evil ; so much so that his fellow-mem- 
bers will wish him out of the club. There is an 
atmosphere in the parish. God alone knows how 



168 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



my sins influence yon, and how your sins influence 
me. There is an atmosphere in the community, 
and in the nation, and our sins will touch for harm 
the community and the state. The effluvia from 
one drain breeds pestilence. Have we thought 
of these things ? No ; at least we are ignorant of 
the uttermost consequences. "Father, so far as our 
sins against our brethren are concerned, forgive 
us for we know not what we do." 

Finally : the widening circle of the consequences 
of our sins affect not only God, not only our 
brethren, but also ourselves; I cannot sin and not be 
the worse for that sin. That is a rule that admits 
of no exceptions. The trouble is— that the last 
place in which our sins are placarded is in the flesh. 
Do we appreciate that ? The last place in which 
our sins are advertised is in the body. If every 
time we sinned, we lost some physical beauty, if 
every time we sinned, we manifested some physical 
deformity; if every time we sinned, the sin were 
tattooed upon our flesh — how careful we should 
be not to sin. If we could see our sins at work as 
a wrecker demolishing a house, first the walls, then 
the roof, then the foundation, we would be ob- 
sessed with terror at the very appearance of evil. 
But such is not the case. A man drinks, drinks, 
drinks, before the results of sin are physically ap- 
parent. A man lusts for many a long day before 
we see the telltale story, as we often do, upon 



THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN 169 

his evil f ace, his shrunken form, and his vacillating 
limbs. This is true not only of the baser passions, 
but of the dainty sins dressed in gauzy draperies 
which masquerade as virtues. Only after long time 
are they evidenced in paucity of soul so pronounced 
that he who runs may read the imprimatur upon 
the flesh. The first result of sin is aimed against 
the spiritual treasure ; it bombards the gates of the 
Holy Place, and takes captive the sanctities therein. 
Just as, to take a homely illustration, if one room 
of your house is overheated and you shut the door, 
the effect is not conspicuous in the roof and walls of 
the house, but the mischief is wrought within the 
house and room itself; perhaps a delicate musical 
instrument is irreparably destroyed, or your beau- 
tiful draperies are tarnished, or your tender plants 
are killed. This is the insidiousness of sin, the 
fact that the soul may be lost before the flesh is 
traced with lines of disfigurement. "Gray hairs 
are here and there upon us and we know it not." 
We commit suicide, temporal and eternal, and we 
know not what we do. 0, forgive us, Heavenly 
Father ; we know not what we do. 

These, then, are the widening circles of the 
consequences of our sins aimed against our God, 
our brethren, and ourselves. Wherein lies our re- 
demption? Think; think in God. To think in 
God is to hold communion with God, and to hold 
communion with God is prayer. To think in God 



170 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



is to have our eyes anointed with eyesalve that we 
may see. 

To see in God is to see the whole road ; sideways 
as well as straight ahead; to behold the collateral 
issues as well as the objective. It is to be no longer 
ignorant, but filled with knowledge. An upward 
glance — God. A rounded glance — our brethren. 
An inward glance — ourselves. Lord, open our 
eyes that we may see ! 



FIRST THINGS FIftST 



St. Matt. 6: 33. "Seek ye first." 

T N" speaking of the necessity of placing First 
* Things First there is a statement of Jesus Christ 
in the Sermon on the Mount which instinctively * 
comes to mind : "But seek ye first the Kingdom of 
God and His righteousness, and all these things 
shall be added unto you." You remember the 
"but" is conjunctive to what has passed before. 
Our Lord has been decrying the wrong emphasis > 
of life. "Lay not up treasures upon the earth," 
"Be not anxious what ye shall eat, or what ye 
shall drink." He points out where the true empha- * 
sis is to be placed. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of 
God and His righteousness, and all these secondary 
things shall be added unto you." His moral was 
this: You are prone to glorify the subordinate, 
and demean the essential — put First Things First. 
This counsel, as all the counsel of Jesus, partakes 
of the Speaker's Immortality. The progress of 
history has but proved its applicability to a per- 



172 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



petuated fallacy of mankind. The muddle of 
humanity in the past; its turmoil in the present; 
and its prospective swithering in the future, is 
rooted in an inherent defect of perspective, in a 
seemingly constitutional inability to magnify the 
great, and minimize the little. Time and eternity, 
God and mammon, treasure upon earth and treas- 
ure in heaven, these, in all their ramifications, are 
the abiding selectives, and in accordance with our 
allegiance so is the intrinsic success or failure of 
life. 

Our subject, then, is First Things First: It is 
interesting to look at some historical personages, 
and to see what they considered to be of preeminent 
importance in their lives. 

Here is Martin Luther: The record of his life 
is known to all. Two ways were set before him ; 
the easy way — the way of prestige, the way that 
led to Rome; and, the difficult way — the way of 
persecution, the road that led to Geneva; and he 
chose the difficult way, saying: "Here stand I, 
I can do no other; so help me God." Enthroned 
above all else in his troubled life sat kingly con- 
science. 

Here is Nathaniel Hey wood: He was one of 
the two thousand clergymen in Charles the Sec- 
ond's reign who gave up their livings at the cate- 
gorical imperative of the inner voice. His parish- 
ioners were grieved to lose him; they gathered 



FIRST THINGS FIRST 



173 



around him, and urged him to remain ; they said : 
"Oh, Mr. Heywood, many a man in these days 
makes a great gash in his conscience, could you not 
make just a little nick in yours ?" But the brave 
man, uncompromising in his sense of duty, refused 
to make so much as a scratch. He placed, in the 
sense of Christ, first things first. 

Here is General Wolfe upon the Plains of 
Abraham: The story is familiar to every Cana- 
dian school boy ; it may be more or less familiar to 
the children of America. Wolfe was wounded, 
lying upon the ground, with his head reclining 
upon the knee of an officer who supported him. 
Around him was the din of battle, the smoke of 
carnage. Suddenly some one close at hand ejacu- 
lated, "They run." a Who run?" whispered Gen- 
eral Wolfe. "The French," came the answer. 
Then Wolfe ordered, "Tell so and so to march his 
men to the mouth of the St. Charles to cut off their 
retreat." After which came the sigh of triumph, 
"I die happy." General Wolfe had set his heart 
upon the capture of Quebec, he had fought against 
recurrent fever which vitiated his physical health 
all through the long winter siege, and his ambition 
achieved he died happy. His first thing first was 
Quebec at all costs. 

Here is Wellington at Waterloo: It was an 
anxious hour in the midst of the battle. The 
French were pressing hard. The English were 



174 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



beginning to waver. Wellington sent a command 
to the colonel of a certain regiment to go into 
action. The colonel refused; his men, he said, 
were too lightly armed to manipulate that particular 
move. The answer was brought to the general, 
and his reply in stentorian tones, and with blaz- 
ing eye, was "tell him to march his men off the 
field." Even at that moment, when the issue of 
the day was hanging in the balance, the first thing 
in the life of a soldier was obedience, and the great 
Wellington found time to express the command, 
"tell that insubordinate officer to march his men off 
the field." 

Here is Phillips Brooks, a warrior of peace: 
After leaving Harvard he set out to be a school 
teacher. He served in the Boston Latin School, 
and placed before him the ideal of instructing the 
young in the rudiments of knowledge. He proved 
himself to be, in this association, an unqualified 
failure. He could maintain no semblance of order 
and discipline among his scholars, big man that he 
was physically. The class room was pandemonium. 
The experience cast him into the depths of de- 
spair; but, it was the minister of God to him 
for good. He had placed first in his life that 
which, under a different setting, ranked second. 
His thoughts were drawn to the Church. He went 
to Virginia, and prepared for the ministry. In 
one year after his ordination his name was known 



FIRST THINGS FIRST 



175 



throughout the ecclesiastical world of the United 
States, and, as rector of the Church of the Advent, 
Philadelphia, he received calls from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific. 

From this time onward he had but one ambi- 
tion — to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. All 
his studies were bent in that direction, and even 
the simplest experiences of every day life were 
mainly important in so far as they catered to homi- 
letic theme and illustration. For thirty-five years he 
prepared, and his preparation was most laborious 
and systematic, on an average two sermons every 
week, and he became the Robertson of America, the 
greatest preacher of his day and generation. His 
first thing, to which he subordinated all else, even 
the institutional life of his several parishes, was 
to preach. With St. Paul he could say, "This one 
thing I do." 

So much, then, with regard to some of the 
great outstanding figures of the past — Luther, Hey- 
wood, Wolfe, Wellington, and Phillips Brooks. 
Luther and Heywood predominated conscience; 
Wolfe, the capture of Quebec; Wellington, obedi- 
ence; and Phillips Brooks the presentation of the 
truth as adapted to the assimilation of men and 
women. 

How is it to-day ? What is the up-to-date com- 
mentary upon the words, "Seek ye first the King- 
dom of God, and His righteousness?" Is it not 



176 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 

true, with all our boasted civilization, with all our 
proclaimed emancipation from the mistakes of 
remote and approximate antiquity, that the miser- 
ableness of humanity is due to neither more nor 
less than this — the fact that the majority of men 
and women do not seek first the Kingdom of God, 
and His righteousness, do not, as a matter of fact, 
place first things first ? People are not getting the 
best out of life; they are not unearthing the hid- 
den riches ; they are not making the most of the 
illimitable resources of personality. They are 
striving for the second rate, under the misappre- 
hension that the second rate is the first rate, and 
they are resting in the discontent of the subsidiary 
when they should be revelling in the ecstasy of the 
primary. People are laying up treasures upon the 
earth ; people are anxious about food and raiment ; 
people are endeavoring to maintain a compromise 
between God and mammon ; people are overwhelm- 
ingly perplexed about the things of to-morrow ; and, 
so, they have forgotten, or they are in a fair way 
to forget, the clarion importunity of the Kingdom 
of God. 

We must remember, of course, and we are per- 
sistently reminded of the fact to-day, that life is 
many sided ; that life has many phases. Man is a 
religious animal, but the animal means that he is 
not all soul. There is the physical, the mental, the 
social, as well as the spiritual constituent of per- 



FIRST THINGS FIRST 



177 



sonality. It is claimed that the Church, through 
her ministers, forgets this complexity of man, and 
that she would transform the week into one pro- 
longed Sabbath. I deny this allegation. This is 
the age, whether we are appreciative of the fact 
or no, of institutionalized Christianity. The whole 
man, muscle, brain, heart, and soul, is being ap- 
pealed to. The house influences the synagogue 
about as much as the synagogue influences the 
house. But, whether the Church is or is not blind 
to the myriad sidedness of life, Jesus Christ was 
not. Not alone by His preaching, but also by His 
living, He showed the profuse and the diffuse rich- 
ness of existence, and the legitimacy of the flesh 
as well as the legitimacy of the spirit. He did not 
deny the right of the minor things, and absorb 
them in the exclusive pursuit of the major. He 
simply asserted that the minor things are minor 
things, and the true proportion of life is to be 
achieved by placing first things first. "Seek ye 
first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, 
and all these things shall be added unto you." "All 
these things" would not be added if they were 
wrong. The whole difficulty is the difficulty of 
false emphasis. 

Let us see it in the world around us to-day: 
There is over-emphasized athleticism. It has been 
said that if the sporting columns were eliminated 
from our daily papers many of our young men 



178 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



would soon forget how to read! There is truth 
and humor in equal doses in this assertion. The 
Germans say that they like sport, but dislike games. 
It is a neat distinction, but there is a well-defined 
difference. Shooting is sport ; fishing is sport ; but, 
baseball and track athletics come under the caption 
of games. We are on this continent of America 
game mad. To run is not the end of life ; to catch 
a ball is not the sine qua non of existence ! Let us 
have sport, let us have games, by all means let us 
have both, but let us withal pay homage to common 
sense. We must have sound minds in sound bodies, 
but athleticism is only important in so far as being, 
in moderation, conducive to health it fits a man 

for the work of life. There are those who in effect . 

V 

parody the words of Christ, "Seek ye first muscle, 
nimbleness of limb, soundness of wind, and let the 
Kingdom of God look after itself. " 

There is over-emphasized scholasticism: The 
mind is an important part of our composition, but 
it is not by any means the most important part. 
The scholar may be, and, as a matter of experience, 
frequently is, a fool, and it is infinitely better to 
possess a loving heart than it is to be the owner of a 
well-stored brain. But, how many students owe 
allegiance to the fallacy that the goal of life is to 
excel as a student. I knew many such at the uni- 
versity. They over applied themselves at their 
studies, they attended lectures with the assiduity 



FIRST THINGS FIRST 



179 



of a leech absorbing the life blood of its victim, 
they whispered in epigram, and spoke in grandilo- 
quent bombast, they stayed up late of nights, and 
burned the midnight oil to streak of dawn. The 
triumphant result was that some of them passed 
record examinations, and were spoken of by de- 
lighted professors as "coming men." Where are 
they all to-day? I am watching for their "com- 
ing" ! Some few have done well ; some have died 
from the effects of over-taxed constitutions (I could 
tell you one or two pathetic stories under that head- 
ing) ; some are the most uninteresting and devital- 
ized mortals with whom it has ever been my mis- 
fortune to meet, and most of them have ceased to be 
"coming men", and have buried their prophetic 
glory within the walls of their revered alma mater. 
The world cannot get along without scholarship, 
that is granted, but, it is well to realize the other 
side of the matter, for there is another side, and 
to appreciate that in the assimilation of knowl- 
edge as in all else there is the happy medium. 
"Seek ye first learning; it is the one thing need- 
ful ; and leave character and understanding to the 
unfoldment of opportunity." This is not only 
wrong, but short sighted folly. 

There is the over-emphasis of wealth: It is a 
threadbare platitude to-day to assert that this is 
"a materialistic age." I believe that to be but a 
half truth. This is a materialistic age, and it is not 



180 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



a materialistic age. This age has all the charm 
of antithesis, or rather, antitheses, and all the 
fascination of contrast. It is this, and it is that, 
and it is the other thing, all in one. It is hard to 
deny, however, that with many the standard of 
life's judgments is based upon wealth, and with 
many the one thing worth seeking is money. 
Money, money, money — it is not only in our hands, 
and in our pockets (where it does not stay for any 
appreciable length of time), but it is in the air. 
The sun is an emblazoned gold piece, the moon 
is a silver dollar, and the very stars of heaven 
above us are coins of currency of diminishing 
denominations. These are those who can think of 
nothing else save Money : there are those who speak 
of nothing else save Money; and there are those 
who degenerate life into one colossal pursuit for 
Money. It is so horribly vulgar on the lowest 
grounds, and it is so pitifully pathetic on the 
highest grounds. Were we not so commercially 
absorbed in this new country we should realize 
this money getting, this money grabbing, this 
money grubbing, and this money spending to be 
the most ludicrous and humiliating parody of life 
ever perpetrated upon humanity by the author of 
all iniquity. Who is intrinsically the better for 
money, and who is intrinsically the worse for the 
want of money ? Come, let us reason together, and 
season our reasoning with a slight modicum of 



FIRST THINGS FIRST 



181 



humor. Whose wisdom is accentuated by the 
possession of money, and whose foolishness is 
alleviated by its accumulation ? Are you more of a 
man than I am because you have twenty-five thou- 
sand dollars a year, and am I considerably less of 
a man because I have only a fraction of that 
amount? Why, I have met numskull million- 
aires, and Aristotelian paupers, and vice versa. 

A friend of mine returned from western Can- 
ada last summer, and said : "I have been through 
Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The wheat is won- 
derful, the flowing, glowing fields rippling in the 
summer wind, are golden to the harvest. The 
wealth of a nation trembles in the balance. The 
next ten days will decide whether or no the crop 
of 1916 is a record crop." Good God — yes, good 
God, the situation demands strong expression — 
what has the wheat crop to do with the innate worth 
of the citizens of Canada ? "The Kingdom of God, 
and His righteousness" is the backbone, the spinal 
column of a nation, and, if this is intact, and recog- 
nized, and lived, why, then, harvests may come and 
go in their plenty or in their paucity, and the nation 
stands four square to all the winds that blow. 

What does it mean to place money first among 
the objects of our life's ambition? I will tell you 
a true story of what it meant to one man. He was 
born of lowly parentage, on a farm. As a boy he 
was methodical in all his ways, and more acquisi- 



182 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



tive than his fellows with regard to the pennies 
that fell to his portion. He was a plodder, and, 
as he grew older determined that come what might 
he would make money before he died. At the age 
of twenty he bought a small farm ; to this in ten 
years' time he added two larger farms. Then an 
opportunity for advantageous sale presenting itself 
he sold all that he possessed for large profit, and 
started in business for himself in a neighboring 
town. There he prospered abundantly, but, the 
day came when, under the advice of a leading 
citizen of his community, he placed all his savings 
in a propitious undertaking. The undertaking 
went to pieces; the man from comparative afflu- 
ence was reduced to straitened circumstances. 
Imagine his feelings ; the bottom had literally fallen 
out of his life ; he had nothing left to live for. He 
had devoted himself body and soul to the acquisi- 
tion of money ; toward the accomplishment of that 
end he had sacrificed all else ; and when his money 
was carried away all his interest in living went 
with it. His First Thing First foundered, and he 
was a hopeless derelict, drifting uselessly upon the 
waters of existence. Finding it no longer possible 
to bear the burden of emptiness, the man placed a 
pistol to his head, and blew his money-saturated 
brains out. "We brought nothing into this world, 
and it is certain that we can carry nothing out," 
and neither bank deposits, nor stocks, nor reliable 



FIRST THINGS FIRST 



183 



mortgages, nor hard cash, will give a man peace at 
the last. That is a woeful platitude, is it not, and 
yet like so many platitudes it is uncomfortably 
true ! 

No; neither athleticism, nor wealth, nor 
scholastic attainments, are worthy of preeminent 
emphasis. As paramount objects of desire they 
prove to be but empty satisfactions. It behooves us, 
then, does it not, to look within ; to importune our 
inner consciousness with this imperative interroga- 
tion, "What is the thing that I am placing first in 
my life ; what is it that holds the premier position, 
around which all my interests are centered ?" and, 
then, through honest analysis to reach this conclu- 
sion, "I must seek first the Kingdom of God and 
His righteousness." 

What is the Kingdom of God and His right- 
eousness? It is difficult to define ; but, we learn how 
to seek it from a study of the life of Jesus Christ. 
He was conscious of the all compelling motive of 
life from the beginning. He sensed it when at the 
age of twelve He said, "Wist ye not that I must be 
about My Father's business?" It was the same 
thing later on when He said, "I am come not to do 
mine own will but the will of Him that sent Me." 
It was the same thing later still when He said, 
"We go up to Jerusalem," when He set His face 
steadfastly toward a mighty consummation. It was 
the same thing in the garden when He cried, "Not 



184 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 

My will, but Thine be done." Then finally He was 
aware of its fulfilment when upon the cross He 
cried in paean of victory, "It is finished." Now, 
what for Jesus was, and so what for us is, the 
Kingdom of God and His righteousness ? Surely 
this, whatever else beside, attention to the needs 
of others. Jesus was forever taking a personal 
interest in people. He was never too occupied to 
comfort the individual in sorrow; to advise him 
in perplexity; to deal in ameliorative consolation 
for the sinner; to care for the sick, and, on occa- 
sion, to raise the dead. He was concentrated upon 
the wholesale redemption of humanity, but He 
ever had time to attend to the individual by the 
roadside. To save the world, and, to save men, 
that was for Jesus Christ, whatever else beside, 
the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness. 

Should not this be the superlative motive of 
our lives ? Brotherliness ; fraternal interest ; self- 
less absorption in the needs of the necessitous ; 
that is the Kingdom of God ; that is the pursuance 
of His righteousness; and that is the secret of a 
life, be it delicate, or ignorant, or poor, which is 
rich with the richness of advancing time, and with 
the treasures of an ever accumulating eternity. 

The field for operation is as large as oppor- 
tunity, and the opportunity is limited by life it- 
self. There is the home, the office, the shop, the 
factory, the street, and there is society, and, above 



FIRST THINGS FIRST 



185 



all else, there is the Church. "Whilst we have 
time let us do good unto all men, hut especially 
unto them that are of the Household of Faith." 

Yes ; in seeking the Kingdom of God, and His 
righteousness, we are to take Jesus as the guide 
of our lives. He is to be our pattern and example 
in this mighty business of putting first things first. 
We may not literally follow in His footsteps, but 
we must assimilate His Spirit. 

On all the big ocean liners they have two com- 
passes. One is on the captain's bridge, near the 
center of navigating activity. Here stands the 
helmsman, and the officer upon duty, and here, 
from time to time, gather the responsible men to 
make their observations, and to regulate the course 
of the ship. The other compass is upon the mast, 
near the crow's nest, where the life of the vessel 
never penetrates, and where all deflecting influ- 
ences are far removed. This is the infallible com- 
pass. In times of emergency, when doubt as to 
position has arisen, or when danger is presumably 
near at hand, someone is sent aloft to read this 
second compass, and by its readings the other com- 
pass is fortified or disproved in its conclusions. 

Circumstances demand that we should be our 
own compass bearers. In the exigencies of daily 
life we have to be our own court of appeal. But, 
amid the turmoil of existence, and, above all, in 
the crises of our days we are not sufficient unto 



186 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



ourselves. Our wills are governed, and our con- 
sciences deflected, by the importunities of things 
around us. Then, if, with undeviating course, we 
would seek the Kingdom of God, and His right- 
eousness, we must have reference to our Infallible 
Guide ; conscience, illuminated by the Standard of 
the Life of Jesus Christ. Only so may we place 
first things first. 



JUDAS ISCARIOT 



St. John 12:5. "Why was not this ointment sold for 
three hundred pence, and given to the poor?" 

fpHESE are, upon the face of them, fair and 



* pleasing words. They are the words of a phil- 
anthropist, and a benefactor; of a preacher, and 
a humanitarian. They arouse our admiration, and 
applause. But, alas — the voice is the voice of 
Judas, and we have been led to think hard things 
about Judas. Let us, then, give to Judas to-day 
the conventional interpretation; let us paint him 
in the colors, the orthodox colors, in which he has 
been portrayed for centuries. 

"Why was not the ointment sold for three hun- 
dred pence, and given to the poor?" A specious 
utterance, but the apostles appraised it for what it 
was worth. In the next verse we read St. John's 
commentary upon the episode : "this he said not be- 
cause he cared for the poor ; but because he was a 
thief, and carried the bag." Judas was becoming 
conscious of his own motives, and so was surprised 




188 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



into saying more than lie meant. He is aware that 
his motives are becoming apparent to his brother 
disciples, and so he speaks magnanimously in 
order to throw dust in their eyes. 

The position of Judas is incongruous. He is 
altogether out of his element. The simple minded 
apostles are arrant fools in his worldly estimation. 
Their childlike devotion to Jesus is getting upon 
his nerves. There is too much heavenliness about 
an earthly proposition to suit his taste. Too much 
emotionalistic sentimentality, and too little prac- 
tical common sense. The others are content to 
listen to the Master's words, and to bask in the 
sunshine of His dreamy presence, and to seek 
nothing tangible for their services. Not so with 
Judas. He is too much a man of business to be 
satisfied with unremunerative visions. The pres- 
ent opportunity is real, and must be grasped. The 
unknown future may take care of itself. He has 
his dreams, but they are dreams of material great- 
ness, and of visible results. He has determined to 
make the most of his position as treasurer, and he 
will at a future and convenient season force the 
hand of Jesus, and compel Him to ascend the 
Throne of Israel. 

As the disciples grow better, and increase in 
godliness, he grows worse and increases in evil. 
For the present, however, he must keep up appear- 
ances, and maintain his attitude of the self-less 



JUDAS ISCARIOT 



189 



enthusiast. This act of a shortsighted woman is 
most trying on his patience. It is such a waste 
of good money; money that might have found its 
way into his pocket ; but at all costs he must lead 
the bystanders to imagine that his thoughts are 
focussed upon the well-being of the poor. "All 
this/' he cries in seemingly righteous indignation, 
"might have been sold for three hundred pence, 
and given to the poor". A wretched man Judas ; 
verily an impossible person ; full worthy of the 
opprobrium that has ever been heaped upon his 
devoted head. 

Now, what is the application? The post of 
treasurer, or secretary of any club, or organization 
is an honorable one. It is a position of trust im- 
posed upon a man through the confidence of his 
fellow-men. It is the last office in the world, how- 
ever, for any man to seek who has a tendency toward 
dishonesty. We should study our own proclivities ; 
we should come through introspective study to 
know ourselves; and so avoid the possibility of 
moral disaster. It is an unwise thing for a man 
who cannot swim to throw himself into the sea if 
he desires to live. The man with tendencies toward 
insobriety should never serve behind a bar! and 
yet, how many men ruthlessly put themselves in 
the way of temptation. I have known youths who 
were susceptible to the influence of sex embrace 
the ministry as a profession. The one profession 



190 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



of all professions where the sensualist may, if he 
will, come into his damnatory own ! Judas should 
have known his weaknesses better than to have 
consented to act as treasurer when the suffrages of 
the Twelve singled him out for such a post. 

Then again : anyone who is connected with the 
financial side of Church life knows how desperately 
hard it is to get the major number of people in a 
congregation to take a monetary interest in foreign 
missions. So many people say, and they say it with 
a seraphic smile, and with a look of wisdom that 
would make a philosopher blush with envy, "the 
money might be better spent upon the heathen at 
home." This they say not because they really 
care one iota for the heathen at home ; not because 
they would willingly dedicate an evening to the 
conversion of a skeptic in the neighboring block; 
but merely because calling themselves Christians 
they seek to evade a Christian's paramount obli- 
gation! The money that might have been given 
for the furtherance of Christ's kingdom in Zulu- 
land never gladdens a home in the city of Cleve- 
land. It is spent, as was ever intended, upon 
self! I know a bishop who is obsessed with the 
idea that he is the instrument under God to create 
a Cathedral for his diocese. To this end his labors 
have been almost exclusively directed. But do 
you suppose that his influential laity sympathize 
with him in his ambition — -sympathize with him 



JUDAS ISCARIOT 



191 



to the point of munificent donations? Not for a 
moment. "The money that you want for a Cathe- 
dral", they say, "should be collected as a fund for 
the improvement of the salaries of your underpaid 
clergy." Has such a fund been instituted ? Yes. 
But little if any money has been, or is ever likely 
to be, collected. The influential laity talk this way 
not because they care for the impecunious parsons ; 
but simply because they have their money, and they 
want to keep it ! 

So, often you hear people deprecating the advis- 
ability, and even the morality, of giving money for 
the beautifying of the House of God. "Why is 
not the money spent upon hospitals, and play- 
grounds, and for the furtherance of the work of the 
Associated Charities," they say. But this they 
say not because they self-sacrificingly care for hos- 
pitals, or playgrounds, or the Associated Charities ; 
but because money given in gratitude to Almighty 
God for blessings received seems to their commer- 
cialized minds to be money wasted. 

O, the selfish, grudging spirit that entrenches 
itself behind high sounding phraseology and lofty 
sentiments which cost nothing beyond the breath 
that gives them life — beware of it, my friends. 
It is the hall mark of the modern, present day, 
Judas Iscariot. There is such a thing as serving 
God; and there is such a thing as satisfying the 
insatiable ego. 



192 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



Finally: Anyone who has been the recipient 
of heartbroken confessions realizes that the worst 
experience known to the individual is to have a 
sin between oneself and God — a sin unknown to 
relatives, and associates, and friends. To live in 
a pure home, and to be oneself secretly impure. 
To be treated as an equal and a Christian ; and yet 
to be utterly unworthy of confidence. To be re- 
spected by one's employers in business, and yet 
to be guilty of peculation on the sly. All this is 
to be encompassed with the very pains of hell. 
Who may fathom the feelings of Judas in his saner 
moments- — with the dark sin of dishonesty upon 
his conscience, and surrounded by the transparent 
integrity of his fellow-disciples ? Let us walk 
the straight and narrow path; for verily such pro- 
cedure not only gives a man peace at the last, but 
peace all the time. 

Judas, then, still lives. He is not merely a 
figure of ancient history. Judas still lives — Judas 
with his easily spoken plausibilities ; with his covet- 
ous heart; and with his hidden iniquity. Let us 
see to it that Judas does not live in us. 



STEWARDSHIP 



I Cor. 4: 2. "It is required in stewards that a man be 
found faithful." 

TN his old age Daniel Webster was asked by a 
■I friend, "What is the greatest thought that has 
ever crossed your mind?" Webster sat in silence 
for a space, knit his brows together in meditation, 
and then looking up into the face of his interro- 
gator, made reply, "In my whole lifetime the great- 
est thought that has ever crossed my mind is this : 
'the thought of my individual responsibility to 
God'." 

Our Individual Responsibility to God. The 
Bible is full of it ; it runs as a golden thread from 
Genesis to Revelation. 

In the Old Testament, at the very beginning, 
we have the story of the Garden of Eden. Man was 
placed in the favored spot as an overseer of the 
Almighty; as a caretaker of the Agricultural 
Elysium ; but, Adam and Eve abused their steward- 
ship, and expulsion was the price of misused priv- 
ilege. There is the account of the flood. Sin was 



194 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



rife, the creature had forgotten his subserviency 
to the legitimate Over Lordship of the Creator; 
the means had been substituted for the ends of life. 
Man, in his own estimation, was no longer a stew- 
ard, but a possessor. Existence had degenerated 
into a playground for the deportment of self- 
gratification. The result was a wholesale deluge 
in which only those who acknowledged the King- 
ship of Jehovah were saved. 

There were the Prophets: A succession of 
mighty men raised up to recall the unstable 
Israelites to a sense of their obligations to the God 
who had selected them to be His Chosen People. 
The message of these prophets, whatever the form 
of its expression, whatever the respective circum- 
stances under which it was delivered, was simply 
this: "you are servants, not masters; lessees, not 
lessors. God is a jealous God; render Him under 
fear of destruction His lawful dues." 

In the New Testament we are under the domain 
of the same idea: Man is a steward; all that he 
has, all that he is, belongs to God. What he pos- 
sesses is possessed in trust for another. He is 
utterly deficient in propriety rights; he is the 
tenant, another is the Landlord, The Parables are 
saturated with this theme ; a man's individual re- 
sponsibility to God. Witness the Parable of the 
Unjust Steward, and the Parable of the Pounds. 
And this thought is not merely bare and absolute ; 



STEWARDSHIP 



195 



it is amplified and relative. For that which, a 
man has in trust he must some day render an ex- 
plicit statement. As steward he is ultimately to 
be called upon for a complete and detailed ac- 
count. In the picture of the last judgment, when 
the agelong multitudes are gathered together at the 
great Assize, and the Judge the irrefutable arbiter 
of merit and demerit is seated upon the throne, the 
ultimate destiny of man is based upon the use 
that the individual has made of opportunity. The 
bestowal of heaven or hell resides in the words, 
"Inasmuch as ye did it, and inasmuch as ye did it 
not." 

And, not only Christ's Words, but also His 
Work, not only His Preaching, but the incidents 
of His Ministry, emphasize the same conception. 
He spake with authority and not as the scribes. 
He made fundamental claims with no appearance 
of affectation, but in an attitude of indisputable 
sincerity. He walks along the shores of Galilee 
and sees three fishermen, James and John, and 
their father Zebedee, in a boat, mending their nets, 
and He says, "Follow me, and I will make you to 
become Fishers of Men." How could such a com- 
mand escape impertinence; to call upon two sons 
in the presence of their father to abandon their 
accepted vocation for another ? The only apology 
is this : Christ was the Owner of their lives, and 
the earthly parent was at best a Viceroy. 



196 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



He passes on further, and He sees a man 
named Levi sitting at the Receipt of Custom. He 
looks into his eyes; He beckons with His hand, 
and issues His command, "Follow me/' "leave 
your ill gotten gains, the spoils that you have ac- 
cumulated through unpatriotic specialization; for- 
sake immediately a lucrative vocation, and follow 
me." He is the Owner of that man's life, and all 
that he has is to be employed in His service. In- 
stances such as these are multiplied in the Gospel 
narrative. Jesus ministered to men, to the sinful 
and the sick, to the sorrowful, and even to those 
whom He quickened from the dead, upon the under- 
lying presumption, brooking no denial, that the 
individual, and all that he or she possessed, be- 
longed to Him. Ownership upon the one side, and 
stewardship upon the other side; that is the em- 
blazoned shield upon which is engraven the 
rationale of the revelation of God in Christ. 

Wherein is the claim of ownership justified? 

(1) In that God created man, and in His 
Image : The demands engendered by this fact are 
illustrated by that particular occasion when the 
Herodians and the Pharisees conspired together by 
subtlety to entangle Jesus in His talk. They pro- 
pound a query which they consider to be unanswer- 
able. Rubbing their hands in gleeful expectation 
of confounding the youthful pretender they ask 
the question: "Is it lawful to give tribute unto 



STEWARDSHIP 



197 



Caesar, or not?" If He says "yes," then He 
satisfies the Herodians, at the expense of the enmity 
of the Pharisees. If He says "no," then He throws 
in His lot with the Pharisees, and incurs the hos- 
tility of the Herodians. Christ escapes the 
dilemma. He asks for a penny. He holds it up 
to the light, and pointing with His finger to the 
image and superscription, asks, "Whose head is 
that ?" They answer, "Caesar's head." And he 
replies, "Render, therefore, unto Caesar the things 
that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that 
are God's." In other words, "This piece of money 
is Caesar's, because it is marked with his mark, 
and you are God's because you bear His simili- 
tude." 

(2) The Ownership of God is justified in that 
our very sustenance is a gift of the Divine: We 
toil for livelihood. The farmer sows and reaps, 
the laborer digs and enjoys, the mechanic manipu- 
lates and executes, the artisan strives and ac- 
complishes, the merchant plans and prosecutes, the 
professional man schemes and puts his theory into 
practice, and we speak of the rewards of industry, 
and claim these rewards as our own possession. 
But the very talents that enable production be- 
long to God, "unto one He gave five talents, to 
another two, and to another one." Moreover, the 
very results are within His gift of bestowal. "The 
earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the 



198 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



cattle upon a thousand hills." "The silver and the 
gold are mine." 

(3) Ood owns because He redeems: We had 
wandered from the narrow way that leads into the 
Kingdom; we had reached the far country, sepa- 
rated from the Father's house ; we were immersed 
in a parody of life, sunk fathoms deep in a cari- 
cature of opportunity, and then, "God so loved 
the world that He gave His only Begotten Son to 
the end that all who believe in Him should not 
perish." That is the historical fact of wholesale 
redemption. Then there is the perpetuated in- 
dividual application, "If any man sin we have an 
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, and He is 
the propitiation for our sins." That is to say we 
are no longer our own, we are bought with a price, 
"We are, therefore, to glorify God in our bodies 
which are God's." So, in creation, in maintenance, 
and in salvation, we are God's; and, thus, in per- 
sonality, in wealth, and in grace, our office is 
that of stewards. 

"It is required among stewards that a man be 
found faithful" The demand of stewardship is 
faithfulness. Thank God that the emphasis is 
placed there. We are not called upon to be suc- 
cessful stewards, nor clever stewards, nor resource- 
ful stewards. Some could be one or the other; 
a few could be all three; but the preponderating 
majority of men and women could be neither. We 



STEWARDSHIP 



199 



are to be faithful stewards. This gives us all a 
chance. It places the employee upon the same 
plane with the employer; the servant upon the 
same plane with her mistress ; the stupid man upon 
the same platform with the scholar. God expects 
faithfulness in the individual life. There is to be 
a square between aptitude and opportunity, be- 
tween capacity and circumstances. 

God expects faithfulness in the home: Above 
all else it seems to me that this is required to-day. 
The problems of our streets would be minimized 
if parents were true to their trust. Girls go wrong, 
and boys are bestial, largely owing to lack of pa- 
rental supervision. Where in purity's name are the 
mothers and the fathers of the little more than 
children who parade our city streets after night- 
fall, prey to the machinations of sensual men? 
Where is the fidelity of God's Vicegerents to whose 
trust He has imposed the saf ety and the nurture of 
immortal souls ? 

God looks for faithfulness in business: To 
faithlessness here is largely due the warfare be- 
tween capital and labor; the hatred of class for 
class. Employers say, "it is hard to-day to procure 
an honest workman. Unless your eye is forever 
fixed upon him he scamps his work. There is no 
sense of stewardship ; time is forever being wasted, 
and the letter rather than the spirit of endeavor is 
adhered to." Employees say, "It is hard to dis- 



200 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



cover a faithful boss. We are imposed upon, we 
are treated as chattels, rather than as reasonable 
human beings. We are regarded as machines, 
and if we fall short of the required toll we are 
cast aside." The trouble is this: Men have not 
grasped the fact that they are the stewards of 
one another. There is a lack of honest consider- 
ation upon either side. It is required of the cap- 
italist, it is required of the workingman, that he 
be found faithful. 

God demands faithfulness in a Nation: We 
hear a great deal nowadays about the magnitude 
of American resources; about our wealth of field 
and mine and forest; about our flowing acres of 
golden wheat ; about our rivers, and our seas stocked 
with commissariat for the multitudes. The future, 
we say, agricultural, mineral, marine, and 
industrial, is ours. And so, pride is engendered, 
and a sense of self-sufficiency, and an attitude of 
over weening self-conceit, until we actually imagine 
that these treasures, realized and prospective, are 
our own possessions, to be utilized, and exploited, 
as we consider to be advantageous to ourselves. 

These things belong to God, and if gratitude 
is absent, and consciousness of awe inspiring re- 
sponsibility, the verdict of Heaven upon our nation 
will ultimately be the verdict pronounced upon the 
worldly husbandman in the gospel, "God says, 
Thou fool, thy soul is required of thee." 



STEWARDSHIP 



201 



Yes: it is required among stewards that a man 
be found faithful. What we have innately, or ex- 
ternally as a matter of acquired acquisition, is to 
be used not for our selfish gratification, but in the 
service of the Master, in the spread of His King- 
ship among the children of men. 

If a man gives me money to invest for him, 
and I usurp the interest, and place the dividends 
in my own pocket, I am no longer a trustee, I am 
no more a steward, I am a thief. There are men 
"doing time" in the penitentiaries of this country 
to-day for this very behavior. So, what we have 
and what we are, is an investment of God, and we 
are to render to Him the legitimate proceeds. Life 
is an investment; neither more nor less. But life 
is something more than an investment. We are 
not only to invest our capital; that is ourselves 
plus our opportunities, for Christ; but we are to 
make the best possible investment, we are to re- 
ceive the greatest possible returns for the outlay. 
If you entrust a large sum to me, and say, "Put it 
out at the best advantage," and I employ it at 5 
per cent, when I might have employed it with per- 
fect safety at 6 per cent., I am an unfaithful stew- 
ard. We have only one life to invest, only one 
opportunity for accumulated profits ; the yesterdays 
and the to-days will never more return, chances 
will never again be duplicated. So we have no 
time to trifle, no occasion for slackness. We must 



202 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



make the most we possibly may in the time and 
circumstances at our disposal. 

But, you say : Granted that we are stewards, 
and that we are under the ownership of God, 
granted that we are to invest our talents and our 
opportunities, how amid the maze of openings 
around us are we to make the preeminent invest- 
ment? Ash Moses: He was brought up as 
the special charge of a King's daughter. His boy- 
hood and youth were passed amid the worldly 
advantages of Court Life. He was educated as a 
gentleman of Egypt. He had prospects of earthly 
advancement, and lucrative, authoritative position. 
Surely his future was chiseled. But, no ; one day 
he looked abroad upon the world outside the palace 
gates, and in the sun scorched fields he beheld his 
countrymen in the bondage of slavery. And so he 
turned his back upon his glowing prospects, and 
threw in his lot with suffering humanity. Did 
it pay? From a temporal standpoint, no, but 
from an eternal standpoint triumphantly, yes. If 
Moses had followed the line of least resistance, and 
walked the way that was marked out for him to 
walk, he might be interesting to-day as a mummy, 
but not as the world's great labor leader, and as the 
immortal emancipator of the chosen people. 

Ash St. Paul: Read that voluminous third 
chapter of the Philippians. See what his 
scholastic privileges were. Mark his education 



STEWARDSHIP 



203 



at the feet of the illustrious Gamaliel. Realize that 
he had before him a career sufficient to dazzle any 
man; that the highest offices in Church and state 
beckoned to his preeminent ability. But he cast 
it all aside at the call of his persecuted Master, 
and went into Asia Minor, and into Europe, preach- 
ing the Gospel of the Cross. Did it pay? In 
the eyes of men, no ; but in the eyes of Paul and 
God, everlastingly, yes. Nothing else could have 
paid. It was the one investment commensurate 
with his qualifications. "I count all things loss 
for the excellency of Christ Jesus, my Lord." 

Ask Grenfell: He was reared in the lap of 
privilege. Through influence and his own inher- 
ent gifts he might have become a leading physician 
in the old country, a Rabbi in the medical pro- 
fession. But he heard the call of the fishermen of 
Labrador, and he repudiated position and civiliza- 
tion that he might attain the likeness of Jesus 
Christ, his God. Did it pay? Ah, my friends, 
does anything else pay; is anything else really 
worth while ? Ask David Livingstone, ask Carey, 
ask General William Booth, ask Jane Addams, ask 
all the men and women who have devoted their 
lives to the service of their fellow-men. They will 
tell you how to invest, and inform you in the^ sin- 
cerity of Joy unearthly, that it is the one invest- 
ment for a life. 

Look about you ; open your eyes that you may 



204 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



see; behold on every hand the burdens of men, 
crushed as men are beneath the weight of adverse 
circumstances, and invest your life for the welfare 
of your fellow-men. Oh, how can so many of our 
women skim the surface of life, and live butterfly 
existences; how can so many of our young men 
absorb their manhood in tawdry self-seeking ; when 
in this our day and generation the calls of God are 
sounding on every side; when there is "so much 
to do, and so little time to do it in ¥■ 

Let us see to it that we serve, and that as 
stewards we are found faithful. 



THE DESIRE T© SEE JESUS 
St. John 12: 21. "Sir, we would see Jesus." 

THE context is familiar. Certain Greeks, who 
had heard in their distant homes of Jesus 
Christ, and were anxious to test by their own ex- 
perience the truth of the extravagant claims made 
on His behalf, came to Philip in Jerusalem at the 
time of the Passover Festival, and said: "Sir, we 
would see Jesus. " It was a significant incident as 
viewed in connection with the universal application 
of Christianity; that it was not merely a revival 
within the borders of ancient Judaism, but a Cath- 
olic Gospel, as wide and far-reaching as the needs of 
humanity. But the deepest value of the enquiry 
for all ages, and for all people, was that it exempli- 
fied a perpetuated desire of the human heart; as 
fresh and vibrant in each and every generation as 
in the moment of its initial utterance. 

"Sir, we would see Jesus." (1) There is the 
world outside the Church : It is borne in upon the 
understanding of every Church member who thinks 



206 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



at all, that there are many people who care nothing 
for Christianity as a system, as an organized 
society, but who, at the same time, feel the neces- 
sity for God in their lives, and are amenable to the 
fascination of Jesus Christ. These people, hunger- 
ing and thirsting, consciously or unconsciously, 
after a faith to live by, and when occasion demands 
to die by, look at the Church members of their 
acquaintance with this interrogation in their eyes, 
"Sirs, we would see Jesus. You are, presumably, 
the possessors of His richest blessings, you are, self- 
confessed, the privileged partakers of His Life ; we 
would see the Christ in you, so that all that we have 
heard of Him, and all that we have yearned of 
Him, may assume the proportions of a militant 
advocacy, and command the allegiance of our hearts 
and minds." 

This is, undoubtedly, the pragmatical spirit of 
the age, and, as this is the best age that has ever 
dawned upon the world, say what we may, there 
is much in the attitude that is admirable, and to 
be commended. Kesults are the order of the day ; 
everything is gauged by the effect produced; and 
the same criterion is being applied to religion. 
Men are tired of the gossamer dreams of theological 
absurdities, and have come to lay the emphasis upon 
conduct to the exclusion of all else. Show us your 
life, man says to man. 

To be logical, we may, of course, protest that 



THE DESIRE TO SEE JESUS 



207 



Christ is Christ whatever the consistency or the in- 
consistency of His reputed followers; and that 
Christianity is to be judged by the saints alone, by 
those who have cooperated to the full with Christian 
opportunities; but the fact remains that the non- 
church-going multitude have the right to expect in 
us a depth of vision, and a wealth of goodness, 
which shall cause them to take notice of us that 
we have been with J esus. 

Let us look at the matter in a practical way: 
It is altogether impossible for the priest to enter 
the homes of those who are unidentified with organ- 
ized Christianity, and to win over the households 
by pratings, however true such pratings may hap- 
pen to be, upon Baptismal regeneration, the grace 
of the Holy Communion, justification by faith, and 
all the rest of generally accepted ecclesiastical 
vocabulary. He must have a character to exhibit ; a 
character fostered in the Church which is superior 
to characters fostered outside the Church. He must 
be able to say : "Sirs, ye would see Jesus ? Then, 
come with me, and I will show Him to you. I have 
a number of people, men and women, in whom you 
will see His Similitude; in their voices you will 
recognize His Voice; in their faces you will see 
the light that never was on land and sea. Come 
with me out of these non-godly surroundings, and 
I will introduce you to my Hot House Plants in 
the Church of God." If the priest may not say 



208 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



that, and produce the evidence that proves his 
words, then to that degree and extent the salva- 
tion of the world is at stake, and the advent of the 
Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ is retarded 
in its consummation. Just so long as men and 
women are able to say with justice, "Why should I 
go to church ; I know people who are prominent in 
the churches, and their standard of honesty in busi- 
ness, and their behavior in society, are beneath the 
measurements which I set myself", then, just so 
long may the Pope issue his encyclicals, and preach- 
ers rave to the verge of hysteria ; the world at large 
will be individualistic, self-complacent, and mun- 
dane, of the earth earthy. 

If the salt has lost its savor it is useless, and 
only fit to be trampled beneath the feet of men. 
If the leaven has lost its raising properties the 
whole lump will remain unpalatable, and unleav- 
ened. We must see to it, then, my friends, that we 
never degenerate into mere formalists; that we 
never come to church from habit rather than from 
spiritual inclination. For people are looking at 
us. We would be surprised to know how many 
people are looking at us ; and our life, our conduct, 
not our doctrinal assertiveness, are influencing the 
men and women who do not profess to have ever 
seen Jesus Christ. 

(2) There is the world inside the Church: 
Remember I am trying to be thoroughly simple, 



THE DESIRE TO SEE JESUS 209 



and desperately practical. There is the world in- 
side the Church. What is it that the congregation 
asks from their minister? Surely this: "Sir, we 
would see Jesus." This, of course, has to do with 
the preaching of the Gospel. The preacher must 
preach Christ, the saving truths of His Life, His 
Death, His Resurrection, and His abiding com- 
panionship with man ; and, as governed by his abil- 
ity, in such glowing terms that the Living Jesus 
will be seen and felt. "I have seen Jesus, Jesus 
working, hoping, loving; I have been at the foot 
of the Cross with Mary and John, and the little 
group of faithful friends, and seen the Master 
die; I have been on Olivet, and seen the Saviour 
ascending to His Father's Home, with hands out- 
stretched in blessing", that is the true appreciation 
of a sermon. But the requisite is wider than this : 
The congregation demands that the minister shall 
show Christ in his life. As someone has said, "the 
world will only begin to take Christianity seriously 
when the clergy take it seriously". The average 
layman and woman will not countenance for one 
moment a life that contradicts profession. The 
immoral priest, the worldly priest, is not merely in 
danger of losing the ability to appreciate God, but 
he is in immanent peril of losing his means of live- 
lihood. People in this century care little for apos- 
tolic succession, they look for a succession of 
apostolic virtues. The vision of the pure in heart 



210 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



is thought more of than the mechanical validity 
of ordination. "Sir, we would know, not your 
university degree, not the length of your phylac- 
teries, we would know if you really mean what 
you say; if your week-days harmonize with your 
Sundays. In truth, Sir, we would see Jesus; the 
uncompromising J udge of His fellow-men, as well 
as the compassionate forgetter of their imperfec- 
tions." 

Then, to pass to the other side of the matter: 
What is, or at any rate, what should he the consum- 
ing ambition of the priest with regard to his con- 
gregation? Not merely to have his church filled to 
capacity, to have every available pew rented to the 
most propitious tenant, to have the finances of the 
institution in excellent shape. All these things are 
to be desired; they show which way the wind is 
blowing ; they may be outward and visible signs of 
an inward grace that possesses one and all ; they are 
calculated to refresh the energies of a man whose 
profession calls for an alarming expenditure of 
nervous force ; but if this were all, why, then, the 
priest might as well be an actor, or the promoter of 
a secular club ; for in such callings, good houses and 
a paying concern, would undoubtedly be his heri- 
tage. The great object for which he works is spir- 
itual results. All else is subordinated to that. 
Nothing else counts. Is Christ becoming a potent 
personality among his parishioners ; are people bet- 



THE DESIRE TO SEE JESUS 



211 



ter at the end of the year than they were at the 
beginning; is there a bigger courage for the cam- 
paign of living, and a more pronounced equanimity 
in the face of inevitable death; have the multitu- 
dinous sermonizings produced any visible revolu- 
tion in the atmosphere of the parochial family ; are 
people kinder, and less critical than they used to 
be ; has the constant reception of the Blessed Sacra- 
ment fed the spiritually starving into the semblance 
of health, and nurtured the saints to greater holiness 
of life ? These are the questions that he asks, and 
upon the answers he measures the failure or the 
success of his ministry. "Sirs, I would see Jesus." 

Let us, then, my friends, appreciate for what 
it is worth the practical, business-like judgment of 
the outside world ; let us so live in the daily round, 
the common task, as well as in the days when the 
crises of existence come, that men may take note 
of us that we have been with Jesus; let us pray 
for a sacred ministry in truth, one that may reach 
up to the utmost requirements of God and man; 
and, let us so behave as Christians that the parish 
to which we belong may be a center of spiritual 
education in the community ; that men and women 
entering our midst with the world-worn interroga- 
tion on their lips, "Sir, we would see Jesus," may 
find Jesus there. 



STICKING TO IT 
Ephesians 6: 13. "Having done all, to stand." 

THE writer was speaking to a Canadian friend 
recently about the prospects of Allied victory 
in this present European war. He enumerated the 
disastrous Gallipoli campaign, or expedition, in its 
roll call of one hundred thousand dead ; the failure 
of the French and English contingents despatched 
to Greece to check the German-Bulgarian invasion 
of Servia, etc., etc., as instances of Franco-British 
incompetency. He dilated upon the panoramic 
stupidity of the conduct of the war to date by the 
armies and governing powers of the Entente 
Nations in true layman vituperative eloquence ; for 
his heart was temporarily sick, sick unto death, of 
the slowness of the victory of the cause which he 
considers to be the cause of democracy, and human- 
ity. His friend answered the various charges in 
detail, and minimized the force of current and past 
disasters, and then summed up his exhortatory 
statements with this striking phrase, "You know we 



STICKING TO IT 



213 



Britishers may make mistakes, as a matter of fact 
we are prone to make mistakes, hut we never give 
in" He was right. Whatever we may or may not 
think of the happenings of the recent thirty-months 
so far as England and the English are concerned, 
we must confess that the Bulldog is an apt and true 
symbol of the English character, and that history 
is a commentary upon the truism that an English- 
man never knows when he is beaten, and so is sel- 
dom, if ever, thoroughly vanquished. "We may 
make mistakes, hut we never give in." 

The writer had the privilege of spending sev- 
eral years of his life at the University of Oxford. 
Although at that time a physical weakling himself, 
and unable to take any part in athletic sports, he 
was from previous experience, and innate predi- 
lection, deeply interested in all that appertains to 
physical prowess. Eights Week, when the twenty- 
six colleges in the University of Oxford contend 
for the rowing mastery of the river, was always a 
delight to him, and he was year by year an inter- 
ested spectator of the herculean tests of strength 
upon the Isis. The unfailing wonder of the com- 
petitive races to him was always the way in which 
the eight in each boat put their unlimited, and 
uttermost, muscle and grit into the task that they 
had in hand. Backs were bent, arms were strained, 
and hearts were pumped to breaking point from the 
beginning of the race to the finishing line. This 



214 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



was so marked that when the goal was reached 
every man in every shell was in a fainting con- 
dition ; as the saying is, "he was rowed out" ; and 
resuscitation was achieved by a brief resting, bent 
backed, over the oar, and a merciful splashing of 
water over the steaming bodies of the oarsmen by 
brothers less fatigued than their fellows. It was 
bad form for the individual to reach the winning 
or the losing post in any other than an obviously 
exhausted condition. It meant that he had not 
put his last ounce of capacity into the effort to 
bring his boat to victory. Whether the progress 
of the race had been a progress of failure, or other- 
wise, it made no difference in the strenuosity of the 
exertions of the rower ; whether the coxswain had 
steered a good course or a bad course the attitude of 
doing one's best was the same ; there was a stick-to- 
it-ness about the whole performance that was, to 
say the least, an inspiration to the idle onlooker, 
and a source of unalloyed admiration of his fellow- 
man. There was pluck, there was a a do it, if I 
die" atmosphere ; there was an unswerving tenacity 
of purpose that warmed the cockles of one's heart, 
and made one realize the cause of British dominion 
in the four quarters of the world* 

The average Englishman, as judged by our 
standards, may have but little sense of humor ; he 
may appear at times childlike in the simplicity of 
his faith and conviction; he may seem unfeeling, 



STICKING TO IT 



215 



and scarcely human, in his suppression of emotion ; 
but he is possessed of a pertinacity of resolve, he 
is enamoured of a consistency of purpose, that com- 
pensate for whatever may appear to be lacking in 
originality of conception, and brilliancy of execu- 
tion. He never gives in, and he holds on like 
grimmest death itself. This is, of course, seeking 
a national illustration of the truth which the writer 
would enforce, and is devoid in intention of any 
special pleading for the Englishman as differenti- 
ated from the American or the Hottentot. 

Here is an individual instance of the adhesive 
quality, which we are writing about, and which we 
intend shortly to apply to the religious life. There 
was a case in one of the Toronto hospitals a few 
years ago which had baffled the ingenuity of 
diagnosis, and the skilfulness of treatment, of 
many leading physicians of the Queen City. A 
man of sixty years of age was wasting away 
day by day, losing strength hourly, and approxi- 
mating visibly the vanishing point of vitality. He 
was in the public wards, and was, so far as his past 
was concerned, a stranger to all involved. It was 
impossible to discover by the minutest physical 
examination, frequently repeated, what was the 
matter with him. It chanced that at that time Sir 
William Osier, Regius Professor of Medicine in 
the University of Oxford, well known in this coun- 
try through his lengthy connection with the Johns 



216 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



Hopkins University, and his post prandial jest of 
the advisability of chloroforming people of a cer- 
tain age, was in Canada, and in the city of Toronto. 
He was called in by some of his medical confreres 
to give his opinion of the elusive patient who was 
outwitting in his malady the science of the superin- 
tendent, and assistants, or house doctors, of the 
particular hospital of which we speak. He looked 
the man over thoroughly; tapped and pummelled 
him in true, and approved fashion; enquired into 
his family history, and gained through cross-ques- 
tioning an accurate knowledge of his life's habits. 
Then to the interested interrogation of his fellow- 
physicians he pronounced this verdict, "The man is 
dying of want of a drink" ! Alcohol, in graded 
doses, would have, in his opinion, saved the man's 
life. The remedy was suggested forcibly to the 
patient, and it was expected that he would readily 
fall in with the proposed cure. But, no ; the man 
refused to take a drink even if his life depended 
upon it. He had been a drunkard for many years ; 
then he had seen the error of his ways, and had 
determined to eradicate the habit whatever the con- 
sequences. He was willing to forfeit his life to 
have the privilege of dying sober. That was an 
instance of individual stick-to-it-ness that was 
surely commendable from a moral and a religious 
standpoint. It is an instance that has often been 
duplicated in the writer's knowledge in the case of 



STICKING TO IT 



217 



victims from the morphine and drug habits. Such 
sternness of resolution must undoubtedly go a long 
way in redeeming the record of a misspent past 
in the estimation of the Judge of all the world who 
ever doeth right ! 

Now this same persistency of behavior which 
we have illustrated nationally and individually, 
and of course, it would be possible to multiply in- 
stances ad infinitum, is conspicuous upon all sides ; 
we know men in business, and in professional life 
who go upon the principle that "dogged does it," 
who rise superior to all rebuffs, and shadowing of 
circumstance, and hold to their purpose of achieve- 
ment "through thick and thin." We know women, 
delicate, frail women who are rearing families in 
the face of all conceivable adversity, and holding to 
their responsibilities in the vortex of perpetuated 
oppositions, financial and otherwise. It is our 
knowledge of, and acquaintance with, these sub- 
merged heroisms, for they are heroisms seldom 
alluded to by the heroes and heroines themselves 
and little known outside the immediate circle of 
their friendships, that give the salt life, and the 
flavor that makes existence palatable, and appreci- 
ated. The firmament of secular life is literally 
strewn with these light giving stars which enervate 
the darkness of terrestrial experience, and give us 
courage to endure the monotonies of the daily round, 
the common task. 



218 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



But, how is it with the Religious Skies ; are 
they irradiated with shining examples of con- 
sistent persistency, and emblazoned with fixed 
points of illuminative fortitude of purpose % Would 
that we could answer "yes" in all sincerity, and 
with pronounced emphasis of conviction. The fact 
is that, speaking generally, the stick-to-it-ness of 
secular life is not conspicuous to the same degree 
and extent in religious life; that people who will 
follow prosperity through the valleys and over the 
mountains of material obstructions will take fright 
at a molehill or a ditch that confronts them in 
their pilgrimage from self to God. This is the 
altogether appalling weakness of the exhibition of 
Christianity in the world. People assume Christian 
obligations and they do not carry them out for any 
appreciable length of time ; they are forever blow- 
ing hot and cold; they take a stand, and then, 
instead of running the race that is set before them 
they are unaccountably sitting upon the banks 
along the roadside impervious to all promptings 
and proddings of revivication ; they set their hand 
to the plow, and just when you expect a well-turned 
furrow of endeavor, richly tossed and fragrant with 
possibility, they are looking back, and so proving 
themselves unworthy of the kingdom of God. 

There is Confirmation : There is no time, per- 
haps, in the Christian life when hearts are more 
susceptible to the promptings of conscience, and 



STICKING TO IT 



219 



when people are more resolutely determined to do 
the right at all costs. There is a self-conscious 
dedication of the personality to God, and a "woe 
is me" if I do not consistently follow the light that 
never was on land and sea. And yet — what is the 
experience of the average parish priest ? It is 
an experience vouched for by the writer who just 
before leaving a former field of work looked over 
his confirmation records of the previous eight years 
and discovered that, eliminating deaths and re- 
movals, only some 45 per cent, of those whom he 
had prepared for Confirmation were systematic 
communicants of the Church, and faithful in their 
observance of Churchly duties. Lapsed commun- 
icants — why, the phrase comprises the great heart- 
ache of the ordinary clergyman's life. The "never- 
give-in," and the "stick-to-it" are conspicuous by 
their absence. 

There is Church Work: It is true that in every 
parish the number of people actively engaged in 
the organizational life of the parish is altogether 
disproportionate to the enrolled membership. 
Somehow or other men and women feel that Chris- 
tianity is something to get rather than to give, and 
that a receptive attitude is all that is demanded. 
But, the greatest difficulty in parish work is not 
due to the fact that comparatively few people come 
forward and offer themselves for the organized 
activities of the local church, it is that those who 



220 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



do undertake definite responsibilities in this con- 
nection fail to persist in their efforts. There are 
those who are the embodiment of fidelity, who are 
always to be found in their places doing their 
allotted work; they are the backbone of the insti- 
tutional side of every parish's life, and great is 
their reward in heaven. But, there are so many 
people who join this or that society; who persevere 
for a time, and then in some mysterious fashion 
lose their enthusiasm and sense of consecration to 
the work, and fall away into desuetude. In think- 
ing of them one is always reminded of a particular 
class of hearers in the Master's Parable of The 
Sower: "They on the rock are they which, when 
they hear, receive the word with joy; and these 
have no root, which for a • while believe, and in 
time of temptation fall away." 

There is Church Attendance: It is a bad thing 
to harp upon the subject of church attendance, 
and fortunately in many churches it is unneces- 
sary so to do; it is a bad thing to harp upon it 
because there is an ill-concealed belief, and, per- 
haps, well founded, that the priest is an advocate 
for the maintenance of his self-respect in so doing, 
and also because church attendance is not by any 
means the only criterion of the Christian enthusi- 
asm of Christians ; but the way in which people 
come to church when they feel like it, and stay 
away from the church when they feel like it; 



STICKING TO IT 



221 



the way in which they are to be seen in their pews 
at intervals, and then, for no apparent reason, 
are not to be seen in their pews at all; is one of 
the insoluble problems of human nature capable of 
elucidation by a psychologist alone ! There is a 
coming and a going; there is a staying and a stay- 
ing away; there is a heat, a luke-warmness, and 
an icy frigidity of performance, that bewilder the 
mentality of the man w T ho would seek to decipher 
the cryptic conundrum. Imagine any one in his 
or her senses saying, "I never give in in church 
attendance, rain or shine, sound health or indis- 
postion, good preacher or poor ; I am always in my 
place of a Sunday !" Imagine anyone in his or 
her senses saying "I always stick to the perform- 
ance, the external performance, of my churchly 
obligations ; unlet or unhindered by serious illness, 
I never miss a service on the Sabbath !" Why, it is 
hard to imagine such an utterance, or such utter- 
ances, proceeding from the lips of anyone. It car- 
ries a suggestion of the time when the lion and 
the lamb shall lie down together, and a little child 
shall lead all the opposing forces of humanity in 
perfect union and accord, and the sun of the Mil- 
lenium shall have arisen upon the near horizon ! 

Now, the question arises : Why is it that people 
in general have so little adhesiveness in the Chris- 
tian life? It seems to the writer that the answer 
is twofold, and that the first division includes the 



222 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



second. First, those who give in, and who do not 
stick to it, in the Christian life, are not sufficiently 
in earnest in their profession. The Englishman 
is going to do his best to win this war, he is not 
going to despair whatever the adverse circumstances 
aimed against final victory, because he is, and he 
knows it, fighting for national honor, and for life 
itself. He counts no sacrifice too great, no loss, 
even the loss of life, to pay for a satisfactory 
adjustment of eventualities. The oarsman at 
Oxford exhausts his physical force and his 
nervous energy to the uttermost, because he 
would win over his opponent at all costs, and deems 
conquest sufficient compensation for all temporary 
discomfort of arm and limb, of heart and back. 
The reformed drunkard was willing to die rather 
than resort to the use of spiritous liquors which 
had held him in a galling servitude for years 
because he considered death preferable to the thral- 
dom of a pernicious habit. He had rather die as a 
freeman than live as a slave. So with all those 
men and women who count difficulties but dross 
to be cast on one side in order that they may 
achieve success, and prosperity of living. They 
were, and they are, in uncompromising earnest 
seeking the goal which they account worthy of all 
batterings of fortune or circumstance, and for 
which they are willing to forego all primrose paths 
of dalliance. A like earnestness in our Christian 



STICKING TO IT 



223 



convictions would lead to an expression of similar 
indomitability. If we really felt that the one thing 
worth while would be to be found in the likeness of 
Christ Jesus our Lord, and to seek preeminently 
the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, we 
would not be dismayed, nor swerved from our in- 
tention, whatever the opposition arrayed against 
the consummation of our hearts' desire. We are 
not thoroughly in earnest, that is the trouble, we 
are not sufficiently convinced of the superlative 
efficacy of pressing toward the mark for the prize 
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. We 
are half-hearted, thin-souled, and anaemic-minded 
in our Christian calling. Someone has said "Chris- 
tianity has never been tried. " There is more than 
a modicum of truth in the statement. The reason 
that Christianity has never been tried is because 
Christians are not sufficiently Christianized; they 
are not impressed and obsessed with the all-im- 
portance of the Christian interpretation of life. 
They are endeavoring to bolster up a compromise 
between time and eternity, between the body and 
the soul, between God and mammon, and the at- 
tempted compromise vitiates that enthusiasm, that 
persistent enthusiasm, that rises superior to all 
inimical agencies. The only dream worth dream- 
ing, and the only vision worth seeing, is the dream 
that is not dreamed through, and the vision that 
stops short of synthetic fulfilment. 



224 THE MAN OUTSIDE THE CHURCH 



The other reason why people are transients 
rather than citizens in the City of the Christian 
Life, and it is included in the foregoing, is that 
it is desperately hard to be a Christian at the best 
of times, and, humanly speaking, impossible to be 
a Christian at the worst of times. There is no 
warfare like unto the warfare of the flesh against 
the spirit ; there is no subjugation so blood-letting 
as the conquest of wild beasts at Ephesus. "What 
we would we do not, and that which we would not, 
we do. The strife is fierce ; the wrestling is against 
principalities and powers in high places ; and our 
opponent is the prince of the power of the air, we 
breathe him, and he surrounds us on all sides. Our 
motive is willing, but our practice is perforce weak. 
It all comes back, you see, to a question of the 
quality and intensity of our earnestness. If we 
are strong we may utilize our strength to the utter- 
most, and, moreover, such is our doctrine, and with 
many of us our experience, we have a strength to 
call upon which is not our own. "His grace is suf- 
ficient for us; and His Strength is made perfect 
in weakness." Give me a man as earnest in his 
Christian life as he is in his business life; who 
overcomes by sheer force of character all the im- 
pediments that beset the accomplishment of his 
secular purposes ; and I will show you a man who 
by the Help of God will come triumphantly through 
all the obstructions that hinder his progress from 



STICKING TO IT 



225 



earth to heaven. It is all a matter of conviction, 
and realization; conviction of the supreme desir- 
ability of being, despite everything, a Christian, 
and a realization of the horses and chariots of fire 
which surround Elisha. 

"Sticking to it! 3 Let us take these words out 
of their cold print, and vivify them in our heart 
and life. Whatever may be said of us, truthfully 
or falsely, when we come to die, let our friends 
have the privilege of saying, and our enemies have 
the unhappiness of being compelled to admit : "He 
never gave in." "Of the Jews five times received I 
forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with 
rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered ship- 
wreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep ; 
in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils 
of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in 
perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils 
in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils 
among false brethren; in weariness and painf ill- 
ness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in 
fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those 
things that are without, that which cometh upon 
me daily, the care of all the churches. The God 
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is 
blessed forevermore, knoweth that I lie not." 

What an epitaph to travel down along the ages ! 
What an example of sticJc-to-it-ness to you and to 
me ! 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2006 

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